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THOMAS ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE. 

From a Painting by Maria Taylor. 



WHAT I REMEMBER 



BY 



THOMAS ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE 

AUTHOR OP 

UNDISFARN CHASE " " A SIREN " " DURNTON ABBEY " ETC. 



Ci> 



NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 

1888 



Jh\^ 






\y 



OMNIBUS WICCAMICIS 

T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE 

B. M. DE WINTON PR OPE WINTON COLL. 

OLIM ALU^fNUS 

GRATO ANIMO 
D. D D. 



CONTENTS. 



OUAPTEB PAGE 

I. EARLY DAYS IN LONDON 1 

II. EARLY DAYS IN LONDON COUtinUed 20 

IIL AT HARROW 40 

IV. AT HARROW — contiuued 57 

V. AT WINCHESTER 66 

VI. AT WINCHESTER — contifiued ........ 88 

Vn. VISIT TO AMERICA , , 105 

VIII. VISIT TO AMERICA — coutinued 117 

IX. AT OXFORD , 132 

X. OLD DIARIES 153 

XL OLD DIARIES — Continued 158 

XII. OLD DIARIES — coutiuued . . 168 

Xin. AT PARIS 181 

XIV. AT BRUGES. AT HADLEY 201 

XV. GERMAN TOUR. IN AUSTRIA 212 

XVI. IN AUSTRIA — Continued 228 

XVIL AT BIRMINGHAM 239 

XVIII. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS ........ 247 

XIX. MESMERIC EXPERIENCES 252 

XX. IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND 275 

XXL JOURNEY IN BRITTANY 287 

XXIL AT PENRITH. AT PARIS 298 

XXIIL IN WESTERN PRANCE. AGAIN IN PARIS .... 320 

XXIV. IN IRELAND. AT ILFRACOMBE. IN FLORENCE . . 327 

XXV. IN FLORENCE 337 

XXVL CHARLES DICKENS 351 



VI CONTENTS. 

OHAPTEB PAGE 

XXVII. AT LUCCA BATHS 364 

XXVIII. THE GARROWS. SCIENTIFIC CONGRESSES. MY 

FIRST MARRIAGE 376 

XXIX. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 390 

XXX. REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE 404 

XXXI. REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE COYltinued . .415 

XXXII. LETTERS FROM PEARD. GARIBALDI. LETTERS 

FROM PULSZKY 425 

XXXIIL WALTER S. LANDOR. G. P. MARSH 438 

XXXIV. MR. AND MRS. LEWES 451 

XXXV. LETTERS FROM MR. AND MRS. LEWES .... 474 

XXXVL MY MOTHER. LETTERS OF MARY MITFORD. 

LETTERS OF T. C. GRATTAN 488 

XXXVII. THEODOSIA TROLLOPE 505 

XXXVin. DEATH OF MR. GARROW. PROTESTANT CEMETERY. 

ANGEL IN THE HOUSE NO MORE . . . .517 

XXXIX. CONCLUSION 521 

INDEX 523 



WHAT I REMEMBER. 



CHAPTER I. 

EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 

I HAVE no intention of writing an autobiography. 
There has been nothing in my life which could justify 
such a pretension. But I have lived a long time. I re- 
member an aged porter at the monastery of the "Sagro 
Eremo," above Camaldoli, who had taken brevet rank as 
a saint solely on the score of his ninety years. His breth- 
ren called him and considered him as Saint Simon simply 
because he had been porter at that gate for more than 
sixty years. Now my credentials as a babbler of remi- 
niscences are of a similar nature to those of the old porter, 
I have been here so many, many years. And then those 
years have comprised the best part of the nineteenth cen- 
tury — a century during which change has been more rap- 
idly at work among all the surroundings of Englishmen 
than probably during any other century of which social 
history has to tell. 

Of course middle - aged men know, as well as we an- 
cients, the fact that social life in England — or, rather, let 
me say in Europe — is very different from what it was in 
the days of their fathers, and are perfectly well acquainted 
with the great and oftentimes celebrated causes which 
have differentiated the Victorian era from all others. But 
only the small records of an unimportant individual life, 
only the memories which happen to linger in an old man's 
brain, like bits of drift-weed floating round and round in 
the eddies of a back-water, can bring vividly before the 
young of the present generation those ways and manners 
1 



2 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

of acting and thinking and talking in the ordinary, everj-- 
day affairs of life which indicate the differences between 
themselves and their grandfathers. 

I was born in the year 1810 at No. 16 Keppel Street, 
Russell Square. The region was at that time inhabited by 
the professional classes, mainly lawyers. My father was a 
barrister of the Middle Temple to the best of my recollec- 
tion, but having chambers in the Old Square, Lincoln's 
Inn. A quarter of a century or so later all the district in 
question became rather deteriorated in social estimation, 
but has, I am told, recently recovered itself in this respect 
under the careful and judicious administration of the 
Duke of Bedford. The whole region appeared to me, 
when I was recently in London, about the least changed 
part of the London of my youthful days. As I walked 
up Store Street, which runs in a line from Keppel Street 
to Tottenham Court Road, I spied the name of " Pidding, 
Confectioner." I immediately entered the shop and made 
a purchase at the counter. " I did not in the least want 
this tart," said I to the girl who was serving in the shop. 
" Why did you take it, then ?" said she, with a little toss 
of her head. " Nobody asked you to buy it." " I bought 
it," rejoined I, "because I used to buy pastry of Mr. Pid- 
ding in this shop seventy years ago." "Lor', sir!" said 
the girl, " did you really ?" She probably considered me 
to be the Wandering Jew. 

I remember well that my father used to point out to me 
houses in Russell Square, Bedford Square, and Blooms- 
bury Square in which judges and other notable legal lu- 
minaries used to live. But even in those days the locali- 
ties in question, especially the last named of them, were 
beginning to be deserted by such personages, who were 
already moving farther westward. The occasion of these 
walks with my father through the squares I have named 
— to which Red Lion Square might have been added — was 
one the painful nature of which has fixed it in my mem- 
ory indelibly. 

" Infandiim memoria jubes renovare dolorem." 

For the object of these walks was the rendering an ac- 
count of the morning's studies. I was about six years old 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 3 

when, under my father's auspices, I was first introduced 
to the "Eton Latin Grammar." He was a Wykehamist, 
had been a fellow of New College, and had held a Yine- 
rian fellowship. And his great ambition was that his eld- 
est son, myself, should tread in his steps and pursue the 
same career. Dis aliter visuin! as regards at least the 
latter stages of that career. For I did become, and am, a 
Wykehamist, as much as eight years at Coll. B. 31. Win- 
1 071 2^"^' ope Winton can make me. 

Of which more anon. 

For the present I see myself alone in the back drawing- 
room of No. 16 Keppel Street, in which room the family 
breakfast took place — probably to avoid the necessity of 
lighting another tire in the dining-room below — at 7 a.m., 
on my knees before the sofa, with my head in my hands 
and my eyes fixed on the " Eton Latin Grammar " laid on 
the sofa-cushion before me. My parents had not yet come 
down to breakfast, nor had the tea-urn been brought up 
by the footman. N'ota bene. — My father was a poor man, 
and his establishment altogether on a modest footing. 
But it never would have occurred to him or to my mother 
that they could get on without a man-servant in livery. 
And though this liveried footman served a family in which 
two tallow candles, with their snuffer-dish, supplied the 
whole illumination of the evening, had the livery been an 
invented one instead of that proper to the family, the cir- 
cumstance would have been an absurdity exciting the 
ridicule of all the society in which my parents lived. 
Tempora ynutantur I Certainly, at the present day, an 
equally unpretending household would be burdened by no 
footman. But on the morning which memory is recalling 
to me the footman was coming up with the urn, and my 
parents were coming down to breakfast, probably simul- 
taneously; and the question of the hour was whether I 
could get the due relationship of relative and antecedent 
into my little head before the two events arrived. 

And that, as I remember it, was the almost unvaried 
routine for more than a year or two. I think, however, 
that the walks of which I was speaking when this retro- 
spect presented itself to me must have belonged to a time 



4 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

a little, but not much, later; for I had then advanced to 
the making of Latin verses. We used to begin in those 
days by making "nonsense verses." And many of us 
ended in the same way ! The next step — Gradus ad Par- 
nassiim — consisted in turning into Latin verse certain 
English materials provided for the purpose, and so cun- 
ningly prepared as to fall easily and almost inevitably into 
the required form. And these were the studies which, as 
I specially remember, were the subject of rehearsal during 
those walks from Lincoln's Inn to Keppel Street. 

My father was in the habit of returning from his cham- 
bers to a five-o'clock dinner — rather a late hour, because 
he was an industrious and laborious man. W^ll ! we, that 
is, my next brother (not the one whose name became sub- 
sequently well known in the world, but my brother Henry, 
who died early) and myself, used to walk from Keppel 
Street to Lincoln's Inn, so as to arrive in time to walk 
back with my father. He was a fast walker; and as we 
trotted along, one on each side of him, the repetition of 
our morning's poetical achievements did not tend, as I 
well remember, to facilitate the difficulty of " keeping our 
wind." 

But what has probably fixed all this in my mind during 
nearly three quarters of a century was my father's pat ap- 
plication of one of our lines to the difficulties of those per- 
ipatetic poetizings. " Muse and sound of wheel do not 
well agree^'' read the cunningly prepared original, which 
the alumnus, with wonderful sagacity, was to turn into, 
" N'on bene conveniunt Musa rotmque so7ius.^^ " That," 
said my father, as he turned sharp round the corner into 
the comparative quiet of Featherstone Buildings, "is ex- 
actly why I turned out of Holborn!" 

I do not know whether children of eight years old, or 
thereabouts, would at the present day be allowed to range 
London so freely as we were. But our great amusement 
and delight was to take long exploring walks in as distant 
parts of the huge (though then comparatively small) city 
as could be compassed within the time at our disposition. 
One especially favorite excursion, I well remember, was 
to the White Horse Cellar in Piccadilly to see the coaches 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 5 

start or arrive. I knew all their names, and their sup- 
posed comparative speed. By this means, indeed, came 
my first introduction to English geography. Formal les- 
sons on such a thoroughly " commercial academy" subject 
were not, of course, thought of for an aspiring Wykeham- 
ist. But for the due enjoyment of the White Horse Cel- 
lar spectacle it was necessary to know the whereabouts of 
the cities, their distance from London, and the routes by 
which they were reached. It thus came to pass that our 
geographical notions were of a curiously partial descrip- 
tion — tolerably copious and accurate as regards the south 
and west of England, far less so as regards the north; for 
the north-country coaches did not start from Piccadilly. 
On the opposite side of the way to the White Horse Cellar 
there was another coaching inn, the White Bear, on which 
I remembiCr we used to look with much contempt, from 
the belies, whether in any degree well founded I know not, 
that the. coaches which stopped there on their way out of 
town, or arrived there, were mainly slow coaches. 

One does not traverse well-nigh fourscore years with- 
out having experienced longings for the unattainable on 
several occasions. But I have no remembrance of any 
such eager, craving longing as the chronic longing of those 
days to make one of the great-coated companies who were 
departing to their various destinations by those "Tele- 
graphs," "High-Flyers," "Magnets," and "Independents." 
(The more suggestive names of the "Wonder," and its 
rival the " No Wonder !" once celebrated on the north- 
western road, belonged to a later day.) Had I been offered 
a seat on any of these vehicles my choice would have been 
dictated solely by considerations of distance — Falmouth 
for choice, as the westward Ultima Thule of coaching ex- 
perience. With what rapture should I have climbed, in 
my little round jacket as I was, and without a thought of 
any other protection, to the roof of the Falmouth mail 
— the mail for choice, the Devonport Quicksilver being 
then in the womb of the future — and started to fetch a 
forgotten letter (say) of the utmost importance, with strict 
injunctions to bring it back by the returning coach! I 
don't think my imagination had yet soared to the supreme 



6 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

glories of the box-seat. That came later. To have been 
a booked passenger, that that horn should have sounded 
for me, that I should have been included in the guard's 
final and cheery assurance that at length all was " right " 
— would have been ample enough for an ecstacy of happi- 
ness. What an endless vista of ever-changing miles of 
country ! What an infinite succession of " teams " ! What 
a delicious sense of belonging to some select and specially 
important and adventurous section of humanity as we 
should clatter at midnight, or even at three or four o'clock 
in the morning, through the streets of quiet little country 
towns, ourselves the only souls awake in all the place ! 
What speculations as to the immediate bestowal and occu- 
pation of the coachman, when he " left you here, sir !" in 
the small hours ! What a delightful sense of the possible 
dangers of the undertaking as testified by many eagerly 
read narratives of the disasters of the road. Alas! I had 
no share in it all, save to stand on the curbstone amid the 
crowd of Jew boys selling oranges and cedar pencils six- 
pence a dozen, and hurrying passengers and guards and 
porters, and look on them all with envious longing. 

Nota bene. On such an occasion at the present day — if 
it be possible to conceive such an anachronism — the Jew 
boys above referred to would be probably Christian boys, 
and the object of their commerce the evening papers. 
But I have no recollection of any such element in the scene 
at the White Horse Cellar some sixty-eight years since. 

Occasionally when a holiday from lessons occurred — I 
am afraid most probably in consequence of my father 
being confined to his bed with headaches, which even at 
that early day, and increasingly, as years went on, afflicted 
him — we, my brother H^nry and I, obtained permission 
for a longer ramble. I have no recollection that on these 
occasions either the parks (unless, perhaps sometimes St. 
James's Park), or Kensington Gardens, or Hampstead, or 
Highgate, or any of the places that might be supposed to 
be attractive, had any attractions for us. Our faces were 
ever turned eastward. The city with its narrow, mysteri- 
ous lanes, and still more mysterious wharves, its quaint 
secluded churches, its Guildhall, and its Gog and Magog, 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 7 

the queer localities of the halls of its companies, and spe- 
cially the abstruse mystery of that venerable Palladium,the 
London stone, excited in those days an irresistible influence 
on my imagination. But above all else the grand object 
of a much-planned eastern pilgrimage was the docks ! — 
with the outgoing ships bearing, tied to their shrouds, 
boards indicating their destinations. Here again was un- 
satisfied longing ! But it was a longing more tempered 
by awe and uncertainty. I am not sure that I would, if 
it had been offered to me, have stepped on board an East 
Indiaman bound for Bombay as eagerly as I would have 
climbed a coach starting for the Land's End. But it was 
a great triumph to have seen with our own eyes the Agy'a 
(or some other) Castle majestically passing through the 
dock gates, while passengers on deck, men and women, 
whose feet would absolutely touch land no more till they 
stopped at far Bombay on the other side of the world, 
spoke last farewells to friends standing on the dock walls 
or even on the gates themselves. 

But I can recall no less vividly certain expeditions of a 
kind which appeared to our imaginations to be — and which, 
perhaps, really were in some degree — fraught with a cer- 
tain amount of peril. Stories had reached us of sundry 
mysteriously wicked regions, where the bandit bands of 
the great city consorted and lived outlaw lives under cir- 
cumstances and conditions that powerfully excited our 
young imagination. Especially accounts of a certain lane 
had reached us, where it was said all the pocket-handker- 
chiefs stolen by all the pickpockets in London were to be 
seen exposed in a sort of unholy market. The name of 
this place was Saffron Hill. Whether any such place still 
exists, I know not. It has probably been swept away by 
the march of recent improvement. But it did in those 
days veritably exist. And to this extraordinary spot — as 
remote and strange to our fancy as the realms of Prester 
John — it was determined, after protracted consideration 
by my brother and myself, that our next long ramble 
should be devoted. We had ascertained that the dingy 
land of our researches lay somewhat to the westward of 
Smithfield — which had already been the object of a most 



8 AVHAT I REMEMBER. 

successful, adventurous, and delightful expedition, not 
without pleasurable perils of its own from excited dro- 
vers and their dogs — and by dint of considerable persever- 
ance we reached it, and were richly rewarded for our toil 
and enterprise. Report had spoken truly. Saffron Hill 
was a world of pocket-handkerchiefs. From every win- 
dow, and on lines stretched across the narrow street, they 
fluttered in all the colors of the rainbow, and of all sizes 
and qualities. The whole lane was a long vista of pennon- 
like pocket-handkerchiefs! We should have much liked 
to attempt to deal in this strange market, not so much for 
the sake of possessing any of the articles, as with a view 
of obtaining experience, and informing ourselves respect- 
ing the manners and customs of the country. But we 
were protected from the possibly unpleasant results of any 
such tentative by the total absence from our pockets of 
any coin of the realm. We doubtless had pocket-hand- 
kerchiefs, and I have no recollection of their having been 
stolen. Probably it was ascertained by the inhabitants 
that they were not worth their notice. 

But the subject reminds me of an experience of the 
pocket-picking world which occurred to me some twenty 
years later. It was at Naples. People generally in those 
days carried silk pocket-handkerchiefs instead of the scraps 
of muslin which are affected nowadays. And five silk 
pocket-handkerchiefs were abstracted from my pockets 
during my walks abroad in as many days. I then took 
to wearing very common ones, and lost no more ! An 
American then at Naples, whose experiences of the pro- 
clivities of that population had been similar to mine, was 
not so fortunate in the result of the defensive measures he 
adopted. He sewed strongly into the interior of his pocket 
a large fish-hook. The result which he anticipated fol- 
lowed. The thief's hand was caught, and the American, 
turning sharply, seized him by the wrist and held him in a 
grasp like a vise till he could hand him over to a gen- 
darme. But within a fortnight that American was stabbed 
to the heart one night as he was going home from the 
theatre. The light-fingered fraternity, it would seem, con- 
sidered that such a practice was not within the laws of the 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 



9 



game ; whereas my more moderate ruse did not offend 
their sense of justice and fair-play. 

My brother and I reached home safely enough after our 
expedition to thief -land; and were inexhaustible in our 
accounts of the wonders we had witnessed. For it formed 
no part of our plan, and would not have been at all in ac- 
cordance with the general practice of our lives, to conceal 
the facts from our parents. Probably we had a sufficient 
suspicion of the questionable nature of the expedition we 
contemplated to prevent us from declaring it beforehand. 
But our education and habits would have forbidden any 
dream of concealing it. 

As far as my recollection serves me, our moral and re- 
ligious education led us to consider the whole duty of boy 
to be summed up in the two precepts "obey" and "tell 
no lies." I think there was a perfunctory saying of some 
portion of the catechism on a Sunday morning. But I am 
very sure that in our own minds, and apparently in those 
of all concerned, the vastly superior importance of the 
Virgil lesson admitted of no moment's doubt. But it must 
not be imagined from this that my parents were more ir- 
religious people than their neighbors ; still less that they 
were not most affectionately and, indeed, supremely solic- 
itous for the well-being and education of their children. 
My father was the son of a priest of the Church of Eng- 
land, and my mother the daughter of another, the Rev. 
William Milton, Vicar of Heckffeld, a New College living 
not far from Reading. Their associates were mainly bar- 
risters or clergy. My father was wholly and absolutely 
free from the prevailing vice of the time, and I never 
remember to have seen him in any slightest degree the 
worse for drink. And in the whole maiiihre cfetre of the 
house and home there was no note or symptom of any life 
save one of the most correct respectability and propriety, 
fully up to the average of the time. But my parents were 
by no means what was called in the language of the time 
" evangelicals." And in the social atmosphere of those 
days, any more decided and marked amount of religious 
instruction and teaching would have unmistakably indi- 
cated "evangelical tendencies." Moreover, though I can- 
1* 



10 WHAT 1 REMEMBER. 

not remember, and it is exceedingly improbable, that any 
ideas were directly instilled into our minds on the subject, 
it certainly is the fact that I grew into boyhood with the 
notion that " evangelicalism," or " low churchism," was a 
note of vulgarity — a sort of thing that might be expected 
to be met with in tradesmen's back parlors, and "acade- 
mies," where the youths who came from such places were 
instructed in English grammar and arithmetic, but was 
not to be met with, and was utterly out of place, among 
gentlemen and in gentlemanlike places of education, 
where nothing of the kind was taught. 

All this to mark the change of tempora and mores, in 
these as in so many other respects, since George the Third 
was king. 

Among the few surviving remembrances of those child- 
hood's years in Keppel Street, I can still recall to the 
mind's eye the face and features of "Farmer," the highly 
trustworthy and responsible middle-aged woman who ruled 
the nursery there, into which a rapid succession of broth- 
ers and sisters was being introduced in those years. Farm- 
er, as I remember her, inspired more awe than affection. 
She was an austere and somewhat grim sort of body. And 
somehow or other the obscurely terrible fact that she was 
an Anabaptist (!) had reached the world of the nursery. 
I need hardly say that the accusation carried with it no 
sort of idea whatever to our minds. I don't think we had 
any knowledge that the mystic term in question had refer- 
ence to any forms or modifications of religious belief. But 
we were well assured that it implied something mysterious 
and terrible. And I am afraid that we gracelessly availed 
ourselves of what we should have considered a misfortune, 
if we had at all known what it meant, to express, on occa- 
sions of revolt against discipline, our scorn for an indi- 
vidual so disgraced by nature. I have still in my ear the 
lilt of a wicked chorus the burden of which ran: 
" Old Farmer is an Anabap^^s^ / 
When she is gone, she will not be missed ! " 

I remember, in connection with poor Farmer and her 
heresies, an incident which must have been ridiculous 
enough to the adult actors in it. Dr. Nott, one of the 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 11 

prebendaries of Winchester, was an old and intimate friend 
of my mother's — had been such, I believe, before her mar- 
riage. The mention of this gentleman recalls to my mind 
— but this recollection dates from a later day — that it used 
to be said satirically, with what truth I will not attempt 
to guess, that there was a large Chapter at Winchester 
and Nott^ one of them, a clergyman: the intention being 
to insinuate that he was the only properly clerical charac- 
ter among them. At all events, Dr. Nott was an exem- 
plary dignitary of the Church, not only in character, tastes, 
and pursuits, but in outward presentment also. I remem- 
ber well his spare figure, his pale and delicately cut feat- 
ures, his black gaiters to the knee, and his elaborate white 
neckcloth. He was a competent, and what would have 
been called in that day an " elegant," Italian scholar. It 
was wholly under his supervision that, a few years subse- 
quently, the extensive restoration and repair of Winchester 
Cathedral was executed; a supervision which cost him, in 
consequence of a fall from a ladder in the nave, a broken 
leg and subsequent lameness for life. He had, if I mis- 
take not, been one of the tutors of the Princess Charlotte. 
Well, upon one occasion of a visit of Dr. Nott's in Kep- 
pel Street, we children were summoned to the drawing- 
room for his inspection ; and in reply to a variety of ques- 
tions as to progress, and goodness in the nursery, etc., I, 
as the eldest, took courage to reply that if we were not 
always as good and obedient in the nursery a^ might be 
desired, the circumstance was to be attributed to the pain- 
ful fact that our nurse was an Anabaptist ! AVhether Dr. 
Nott was selected as the recipient of this confidential 
communication because I had any vague idea that this 
disgraceful circumstance had any special connection with 
his department of human afi*airs, I cannot say. We were, 
however, told that the fact was no wise incompatible with 
Farmer's character as an excellent nurse and good servant, 
and least of all could be considered as absolving us from 
the duty of obedience. I remembered that I wondered 
then — and I wonder still — what passed upon the subject 
between my mother and the doctor after our dismissal to 
the nursery. 



12 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

Another intimate friend of my mother's and frequent 
visitor in Keppel Street was Lady Dyer, the wife, and 
subsequently widow, of General Sir Thomas Dyer. Sir 
Thomas resided on his estate of Ovington, near Winches- 
ter ; and I take it that my mother's intimacy with Lady 
Dyer had been brought about by the friendship existing 
between both ladies and Miss Gabell, the eldest daughter 
of Dr. Gabell, the head-master of Winchester College. 
Lady Dyer, after several years of widowhood, married the 
Baron de Zandt; and I remember, very many years subse- 
quently to the time that I am here writing of, visiting her 
with my mother at her schloss, near Bamberg, where she 
lived in the huge house alone after losing her second hus- 
band. 

I fancy it was mainly due to her intimacy with my 
mother during those years in Keppel Street that the 
house was frequented by several Italians ; exiles from 
their own country under stress of political troubles. Es- 
pecially I remember among these General Guglielmo Pepe, 
subsequently the hero of the hopeless defence of Venice 
against the Austrians. Of course I was too young to know 
or see much of him in the Keppel Street days; but many 
years afterwards I had abundant opportunities of know- 
ing Pepe's genuine nobility of character, high honor, and 
ardent patriotism. He was a remarkably handsome man, 
but not a brilliant or amusing companion. I remember 
that his sobriquet among the three ladies mentioned to- 
gether above was Gateau de JPlomb / But none the less 
was he highly and genuinely respected by them. He had 
a kind of simple, dignified, placid manner of enunciating 
the most astounding platitudes, and replying to the laugh- 
ter they sometimes produced by a calm, gentle smile, which 
showed how impossible it was for his simple soul to im- 
agine that his hearers were otherwise than delighted with 
his wit and wisdom. How well I can remember the pleas- 
ure his visits were wont to afford in the nursery by reason 
of the dried Neapolitan figs and Mandarin oranges, which 
he used to receive from his brother. General Fiorestano 
Pepe, and never failed to distribute among his English 
friends. His brother, when Guglielmo threw in his lot 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 13 

with the " patriots," never forfeited his allegiance or quar- 
relled with the King of Naples. Yet the two brothers 
continued on affectionately fraternal terms to the last. 

The quiet course of those Keppel Street years was, as I 
remember, once or twice broken by the great event of a 
visit to Heckfield to my maternal grandfather, the Rev. 
William Milton, a ci-devant fellow of New College. He 
had at that time married a second wife, a Miss Partington, 
his first wife, a Derbyshire Gresley, my maternal grand- 
mother, whom I had never seen, having died young. As 
my grandfather Milton was the son of a Bristol saddler 
(who lived to the age of ninety-nine), I suppose his mar- 
riage with a Gresley must have been deemed a mesalliance 
for the lady. But her death having occurred before my 
time, I never heard anything of this. 

The Vicar of Heckfield held the adjoining chapelry of 
Mattingly, at which place the morning service was per- 
formed on alternate Sundays. He was an excellent parish 
priest after the fashion of his day; that is to say, he was 
kindly to all, liberal to the poor to the utmost extent of 
his means, and well beloved by his neighbors, high and 
low. He was a charming old man, markedly gentleman- 
like and suave in his manner; very nice in his person; 
clever unquestionably in a queer, crotchety sort of way; 
and thoroughly minded to do his duty according to his 
lights in that state of life to which it had pleased God to 
call him. But he would have had no more idea of attempt- 
ing anything of the nature of active parochial work or re- 
form, as understood at the present day, than he would 
have had of scheming to pay the national debt. Indeed, 
the latter would have been the more likely to occupy his 
mind of the two, for he was crotchety and full of schemes. 
Especially he was fond of mechanics, and spent much 
money and much labor during many years on a favorite 
scheme for obviating the danger arising from the liability 
of a stage-coach to be upset. He published more than one 
pamphlet on the subject, illustrated — I can see the pages 
before me now — by designs of various queer-looking mod- 
els. There was a large coach-house attached to the vicar- 
age, and it was always full of the strangest collection of 



14 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

models of coaches. I remember well that they all ap- 
peared to me hideous, and as aesthetically inferior to my 
admired Telegraphs and High-Flyers as a modern iron- 
clad seems to the three-decker of his youth in the eyes 
of an old sailor. But, as may be imagined, I never vent- 
ured to broach any such heresy in my grandfather's hear- 
ing ! I should unquestionably have done so had it been 
my father. But lesser acquaintanceship and the venerable 
age of my grandfather checked my presumption. 

There was — and doubtless is — a very pretty evergreen- 
embowered lawn at the vicarage, and on this also there 
always used to be some model or other intended to illus- 
trate the principles of traction. One I especially remem- 
ber which was called (not, it may seem, very grammati- 
cally) rotis volve?itibus. This machine consisted of two 
huge wheels, some ten feet high, joined together by a 
number of cross-bars at a distance of a foot or so from 
each other. It will be understood what a delightful 
amusement it must have been to creep into the interior 
of this structure, and cause it to roll over the smoothly- 
shaven turf by stepping treadmill fashion on the cross- 
bars one after the other. But unfortunately in one part 
of the lawn there was a steep declivity, and one day, when 
the idea of making rotis volventihiis descend this slope be- 
came irresistible, there was a tremendous smashing of the 
evergreen hedge, and a black-and-blue little body, whose 
escape without broken bones was deemed truly prodig- 
ious. 

"Never, Tom," said my grandfather, "put in motion 
forces which you are unable to control !" 

The words remained implanted in my memory. But I 
do not suppose they carried much instruction with them 
to my mind at the time. 

I believe my grandfather spent more money on his me- 
chanical fads than was quite prudent, and took out patents 
which were about as remunerative and useful as that which 
Charles the Second is said to have granted to a sailor who 
stood on his head on the top of Salisbury steeple, securing 
to him the monopoly of that practice ! 

I remember .another eccentricity in which the vicar 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 15 

indulged. He said the contact of a knife's edge with 
earthenware, or porcelain, was extremely disagreeable. 
He caused, therefore, a number of dinner plates to be 
made with a little circular depression some two inches 
in diameter and about as deep as a crown piece in the cen- 
tre, and had some round pieces of silver to fit into these 
receptacles, on which he cut his meat. 

He was withal a very popular man, a good scholar, with 
decidedly scholarly tastes, much of a mathematician, a 
genuine humorist, with a sort of Horatian easy-going 
geniality about him which was very charming even to us 
boys. 

My brother Henry was one year my junior; my brother 
Anthony, with whom the world subsequently became ac- 
quainted, was five years younger than I. Henry, there- 
fore, was the companion of all the London rambles which 
have been mentioned. I think we were tolerably good 
boys, truthful and obedient to legitimate authority. I 
was, however, if nursery traditions of a somewhat later 
day may be accepted as embodying real facts, rather too 
much given to yielding obedience only on reason shown; 
to "argify," as certain authoritarians are wont to call it; 
and to make plenary submission only when consciously 
defeated in argument. 

We had little or nothing of the " amusements " nowa- 
days so liberally supplied to children. There was the 
pantomime at Christmas, intensely enjoyed. And I re- 
member well pondering on the insoluble question lohy my 
parents, who evidently, I thought, could, if they chose it, 
go to the theatre every night of their lives, should abstain 
from doing so. 

I do not remember any discontented longings for more 
or other amusements than we had. I was a thoroughly 
well constituted and healthy child, but without the small- 
est pretension to good looks, either in esse or in posse ; 
sturdily built, with flaxen head, rosy cheeks, and blue 
eyes; broad of hand and foot; strong as a little pony — a 
veritable Saxon in type. I seem to my recollections to 
have been somewhat bravely ready to accept a life in 
which the kiaks might be more superabundant than the 



16 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

half -pence not without complacent mental reference to 
the moral and physical breadth of shoulders, ready for 
whatever fate might lay on them. The nature of my 
childish mind, as I remember, was to place its ideas of 
heroism in capacity for uncomplaining endurance, rather 
than in capability for mastering others. 

All the usual childish complaints and maladies touched 
me very lightly. I was as indifferent to weather, wet or 
dry, wind or shine, as a Shetland pony. Feet wet through 
had to remain m statu quo till they were dry again. As- 
siduously taught by my mother, I read at a very early 
age. Her plan for teaching the letters was as follows. 
She had a great number of bone counters with the alpha- 
bet in capitals and small letters on either side printed on 
them; then having invited a charming little girl, the 
daughter of a neighbor (Katie Gibbon, laid to rest this 
many a year under the yew-tree in the churchyard of the 
village of Stanton, near Monmouth), who was just my 
own age, she tossed the counters broadcast over the floor, 
instituting prizes for him, or her, who should, in crawling 
races over the floor, soonest bring the letter demanded. 
Reading thus began to be an amusement to me at an un- 
usually early age. I believe I gave early indications of 
possessing a certain quantum of brain power; but had no 
reputation for cleverness. Indeed, had my parents ever 
formed the opinion that any one of their children was in 
any way markedly clever, they would have carefully con- 
cealed It from the subject of it. I take it, I was far from 
being what is called a prepossessing child. I had, I well 
remember, a reputation for an uncompromising expres- 
sion of opinion which was not altogether admirable. My 
mother used to tell in after-years how, when once I had 
been, at about four years old, attentively watching her 
dressing for dinner, while standing on a cbair by the side 
of her dressing-table, I broke silence when the work was 
completed to say very judicially, "Now you have made 
yourself as fine as poso " (possible), *' and you look worse 
than you did when you began !" 

I am tempted to insert here a letter to my father from 
Pr. Williams, my old Winchester master, which (amus- 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 17 

iiigly to me) illustrates what I have here written of my 
nursery tendencies. It belongs to a later date, when I was 
within half a year of leaving Winchester. I had not found 
it among my papers when I wrote the passage to which it 
is now appended. But I place it here in homage to the 
dictum that the child is father to the man. 

" I have the pleasure," Dr. Williams writes, " to express 
my approbation of your son's conduct during the last half- 
year. His firmness in maintaining what was right and 
putting down what was wrong was very conspicuous in 
the early part of that time; not that I imagine it was less 
afterwards, but occasion did not call it forth so much." 

What the occasion was I entirely forget; evidently he 
refers to some exercise of my power as a prefect. 

"I have remarked to you before that he \& fond offiavi- 
ing a reason assigned for everything; but he must take 
care that this do not degenerate into captiousness. His 
temper is generally good, but a little too sensitive when 
he fancies a smile is raised at his expense." 

I feel no confidence that years have rendered me safe 
from the first fault which my excellent master thus warned 
me against; but I am sure they have cured me of the 
second. 

I remember, too, in connection with those Keppel Street 
days, to have heard my mother speak of an incident which 
somewhat curiously illustrates the ways and habits of a 
time already so far left behind us by a whole world of 
social changes. It was nothing more than a simple visit 
to the theatre to hear Mrs. Siddons in Lady Macbeth. 
But this exploit involved circumstances that rendered it 
memorable for other reasons besides the intense gratifica- 
tion derived from the performance. In the first place 
"the pit" was the destination to which my father and 
mother were bound; not altogether, I take it, so much for 
the sake of the lower price of admission (though my fa- 
ther was a sufficiently poor and a sufficiently careful man 
to render this a consideration), as from the idea that the 
pit offered the best vantage-ground for a thoroughly ap- 
preciative and critical judgment of the performance. For 
when we children were taken to see a pantomime we went, 



18 WHAT 1 REMEMBER. 

as I remember, to the boxes. But this visit to the pit in- 
volved the necessity of being at the theatre at two in the 
afternoon, and then standing in the crowd till, if I rightly 
remember, six in the evening ! Of course food had to be 
carried. And each man there did his best to support and 
assist the lady under his charge. But the ordeal must 
have been something tremendous, and the amount of en- 
thusiasm needed to induce a lady to face it something 
scarcely to be understood at the present day. My mother 
used to relate that sundry women were carried out from 
the crowd at the theatre door fainting. 

Before closing this Keppel Street chapter of my exist- 
ence I may mention one or two circumstances of the fam- 
ily life there which illustrate the social habits of those 
days. The family dinner-hour was five. There were no 
dinner-napkins to be seen ; they were perhaps less needed 
by clean-shaven chins and lips. Two tallow-candles, re- 
quiring to be snuffed by snuffers lying in a little plated 
tray ad hoc every now and then, partially illumined the 
table, but scarcely at all the more distant corners of the 
room. Nor were any more or better lights used during 
the evening in the drawing-room. The only alternative 
would have been wax-lights at half a crown a pound — an 
extravagance not to be thought of. Port and sherry were 
always placed on the shining mahogany table when the 
cloth was withdrawn, and no other wine. Only on the 
occasion of having friends to dinner the port became a 
" magnum " of a vintage for which my father's cellar was 
famous, and possibly Madeira might be added. 

Perhaps it may be worth noting here, as an incident 
illustrating change of manners, that I vividly remember 
my mother often singing to us children in Keppel Street an 
old song about an " unfortunate Miss Bayly," who had been 
seduced by a " Captain bold of Halifax, who dwelt in 
country quarters." Now a purer or more innocent-mind- 
ed woman than my mother did not live, nor one less likely 
to have suffered aught that she imagined to be unfitted 
mrginihus puerisqiie to reach the ears of her children. 
Nor do I suppose that we had the faintest notion of the 
nature of the evil inflicted on the unfortunate Miss Bayly 



EARLY DAYS IN LOXDOX. 19 

by the captain bold, nor that we were in any degree scan- 
dalized by the subsequent incident of the parish priest 
being bribed by " a one-pound note " to accord Christian 
burial to the corpse of a suicide, which he had previously 
refused to bury. It may be feared that quite as many 
" unfortunates " share the fate of Miss Bayly, either in 
town or country quarters, at the present day as in the 
early days of the century. But I take it that the old- 
world ditty in question would not be selected for nursery 
use at the present day. 

I could chatter on about those childish days in Keppel 
Street, and have been, I am afraid, too garrulous already. 
What I have said, however, is all illustrative of the social 
changes seventy years have wrought, and may at the same 
time serve to show that I started on my octogenarian ca- 
reer a sturdy, hardy little mortal, non sine Dis animosus 
vifans. 



CHAPTER II. 

EAELY DAYS IN LONDON — {continUCd). 

These fragmentary recollections of our childish days 
may have served to suggest some hints of the changes 
which have made the London of the present day almost — 
perhaps quite — as different from the London of the second 
decade of this century as the latter was from " the town " 
in the days of George the First. But it is difficult for 
middle-aged people of the present day to form any vivid 
and sufficient conception of the greatness of them. Of 
course the mere material ameliorations and extensions have 
so metamorphosed the localities that I, on returning after 
long years to the London I once knew, topographically at 
least, so well, find myself in a new town, of which the ge- 
ography is in some parts strange to me, with just so much 
of the old landmarks remaining as serves to suggest false 
clews to the labyrinth, and render the matter more puzzling. 
But the changes in ways and habits and modes of living 
and feeling and thinking are still greater and of much more 
profound significance. 

To say that there were in those days no omnibuses and 
no cabs, and of course no railways, either under ground or 
over it, is a simple matter, and very easily stated. But it 
is not easy to picture to one's self the whole meaning and 
consequences of their non-existence. Let any Londoner, 
with the exception of the comparatively small number of 
those who use carriages of their own, think what his life 
would be, and the transaction of his day's work or of his 
day's pleasure, without any means of locomotion save his 
own legs or a hackney-coach, which, at a cost of about 
five times the cab-hire of the present day, used to shut 
him up in an atmosphere like that of a very dirty stable, 
and jolt him over the uneven pavement at a pace of about 
four miles an hour. Dickens has given, in his own graphic 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 21 

way, more than one sketch of the old hackney-coach. I 
do not think that I ever saw a hackney-coach that had 
been built for the work it was engaged in as such. They 
were heavy, old-fashioned, rickety vehicles, which had be- 
come too heavy, too old-fashioned, too rickety to be re- 
tained in the service of the families to which they had 
once belonged. They were built, for the most part, with 
hammer-cloths, and many of them exhibited huge and 
gorgeously-painted armorial bearings on the panels. (By- 
the-bye, why did not the officials of the inland revenue 
come down on the proprietors of these venerable vehicles 
for the use of armorial bearings ? I take it that the march 
of modern intelligence, acuens mortalia corda, would im- 
pel their successors of the present day to do so.) The 
drivers of those carriages were " in a concatenation accord- 
ingly" — shabby, slow, stupid, dirty, and often muddled 
with drink. We hear occasionally nowadays of a cabman 
" driving furiously " when drunk. The wording of the 
charge smacks of another era. Not all the gin in London 
could have stimulated the old " Jarvey " to drive his skel- 
etons of horses furiously. He was not often incapacitated 
by drink, but very frequently muddled. If it was neces- 
sary for him to descend from his hammer-cloth for the 
purpose of opening the door of his carriage, which the 
presence of the "waterman" of the stand for the most 
part rendered unnecessary, he was a long time about it, 
and a longer in clambering back to his seat, loaded as he 
generally was in all weathers with an immense greatcoat 
of many capes, weatherbeaten out of all resemblance to 
its original color. The " watermen," so called, as we know 
from high authority, "because they opens the coach-doors," 
were nevertheless surrounded by their half a dozen or so 
of little shallow pails of water, as they stood by the side 
of the curbstone near a coach-stand. They were to the 
hackney-coachman what the bricklayer's laborer is to the 
bricklayer. And a more sorry sight can hardly be con- 
ceived than the "stand" with its broken-down carriages, 
more broken-down drivers, and, worst of all, broken-down 
horses, which supplied us in the days when we "called a 
coach, and let a coach be called, and he that calls it, let 



22 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

him be the caller," as it stands written in a page almost as 
much (but far less deservedly) forgotten as the hackney- 
coach. 

Already in my boyhood " Oxford Road " was beginning 
to be called " Oxford Street." But my father and his con- 
temporaries always used the former phrase. At the end 
of Oxford Street was Tyburn turnpike ; not a mere name, 
but a veritable barrier, closing not only the continuation 
of the Oxford Road, but also the Edgware Road, turning 
at right angles to the north of it. And there stood one 
turnpike-man to receive the toll and give tickets in return 
for the whole of Oxford Street traffic ! I can see him 
now, with his low-crowned hat, a straw in his mouth, his 
vigilant eye, and the preternatural quickness and coolness, 
as it seemed to me, with which, standing in the centre be- 
tween his two gates, he took the half-pence and delivered 
the tickets. He had always an irreproachably clean white 
apron, wdth pockets in front of it, one for half-pence and 
one for tickets. 

I have spoken of my delight in the spectacle of the 
coaches starting from and arriving at the White Horse Cel- 
lar in Piccadilly. But there were many other aspects of 
London life in the days before railroads in which the coach- 
es made a leading feature. One of the sights of London 
for country cousins was to see the mails starting at eight 
P.M. from the post-office. To view it under the most fa- 
vorable circumstances, one went there on the anniversary 
of the king's birthday, when all the guards had their scar- 
let coats new, and the horses' heads were all decked with 
flowers. And truly the yard around the post-office offered 
on such an occasion a prettier sight than all the travelling 
arrangements of the present day could supply. Of course 
I am speaking of a time a little subsequent to my earliest 
recollections. For I can remember when the huge edifice 
in Saint Martin's le Grand was built; and remember well, 
too, the ridicule and the outcry that was raised at the size 
of the building, so enormously larger, it was supposed, 
than could possibly be needed! But it has now long since 
been found altogether insufficient for the needs of the ser- 
vice. 



EARLY DAYS L\ LONDON. 23 

A journey on the box of the mail was a great delight to 
me in those days — days somewhere in the third decade 
of the century ; and, faith ! I believe would be still, if 
there were any mails available for the purpose. One jour- 
ney frequently performed by me with infinite delight was 
to Exeter. My business was to visit two old ladies liv- 
ing there, Miss Mary and Miss Fanny Bent. The Rev. 
John Bent, rector of Crediton, had married the sister of 
my grandmother, the Rev. William Milton's wife. Miss 
Mary Bent was his daughter by a second wife ; but her 
half-sister, Fanny Bent, as we and everybody else called 
her, was thus my mother's first cousin, and the tie be- 
tween Fanny Milton and Fanny Bent had always, from 
their earliest years, been a very close one. 

And that is how I came, on several occasions, to find 
myself on the box of the Exeter mail. A new and accel- 
erated mail service had been recently established under 
the title of the Devonport Mail. It was at that time the 
fastest, I believe, in England. Its performances caused 
somewhat of a sensation in the coaching world, and it 
was known in those circles as the Quicksilver Mail. Its 
early days had chanced, unfortunately, to be marked by 
two or three accidents, which naturally gave it an increased 
celebrity. And, truly, if it is considered what those men 
and horses were required to perform, the wonder was, not 
that the Quicksilver should have come to grief two or 
three times, but rather that it ever made its journey with- 
out doing so. What does the railway traveller of the pres- 
ent day, who sees a travelling post-office, and its huge tend- 
er crammed with postal matter, think of the idea of carry- 
ing all that mass on one, or perhaps two, coaches ? The 
guard, occupying his solitary post behind the coach, on the 
top of the receptacle called, with reference to the construc- 
tions of still earlier days, the hinder hoot, sat on a little 
seat made for one, with his pistols and blunderbuss in a 
box in front of him. And the original notion of those who 
first planned the modern mail-coach was, that the bags 
containing the letters should be carried in that " hinder 
boot." The "fore boot," beneath the driver's box, was 
considered to be appropriated to the baggage of the three 



24 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

outside and four inside passengers, which was the mail's 
entire complement. One of the former shared the box 
with the driver, and two occupied the seat on the roof be- 
hind him. The accommodation provided for these two 
was not of a very comfortable description. They were 
not, indeed, crowded as the four who occupied a similar 
position on another coach often were ; but they had a 
mere board to sit on, whereas the seats on the roof of an 
ordinary stage-coach were provided with cushions. The 
fares by the mail were always somewhat higher than those 
by even equally fast, or in some cases faster, coaches ; and 
it seems unreasonable, therefore, that the accommodation 
should be inferior. I can only suppose that the patrons of 
" the mail " were understood to be compensated for its ma- 
terial imperfections by the superior dignity of their posi- 
tion. The box-seat, however, was well cushioned. 

But if the despatches, which it was the mail's business 
to carry, could once upon a time be contained in that 
hinder boot, such had ceased to be the case before my day. 
The bulk of postal matter which had to be carried was 
continually and rapidly increasing, and I have often seen 
as many as nine enormous sacks heaped on the coach roof. 
The length of these sacks was just sufficient to reach from 
one side of the coach to the other, and the huge heap of 
them, three or even four tiers high, was piled to a height 
which was sufficient to prevent the guard, even when 
standing, from seeing or communicating wHth the coach- 
man. If to the consideration of all this the reader will 
add (if he can) a remembrance of the Somersetshire and 
Devonshire roads, over which this top-heavy load had to 
be carried at about twelve miles an hour, it will not seem 
strange to him that accidents should have occurred. Not 
that the roads were bad; they were, thanks to Macadam, 
good, hard, and smooth, but the hills are numerous, and 
in many cases very steep. 

But the journey, especially on the box-seat, was a very 
pleasant thing. The whole of the service was so well 
done, and in every detail so admirable. It need hardly be 
said that the men selected for the drivers of such a coach 
were masters of their profession. The work was hard, but 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 25 

the remuneration was very good. There were fewer pas- 
sengers by the mail to " remember the coachman," but it 
was more uniformly full, and somewhat more was expect- 
ed from a traveller by the mail. It was a beautiful thing 
to see a splendid team going over their short stage at 
twelve miles an hour! Of course none but good cattle in 
first-rate condition could do the work. A mot of old Mrs. 
Mountain, for many years the well-known proprietress of 
one of the large coaching inns in London, used to be 
quoted as having been addressed by her to one of her 
drivers: "You find whipcord, John, and I'll find oats!" 
And, as it used to be said, the measure of the corn sup- 
plied to a coach-horse was his stomach. 

It was a pretty thing to see the changing of the horses. 
There stood the fresh team, two on the off side, two on 
the near side, and the coach was drawn up with the ut- 
most exactitude between them. Four hostlers jump to 
the splinter-bars and loose the traces; the reins have al- 
ready been thrown down. The driver retains his seat, 
and within the minute (more than once within fifty sec- 
onds by the watch in my hand) the coach is again on its 
onward journey. 

Then how welcome was breakfast at an excellent old- 
world country inn — twenty minutes allowed. The hot 
tea, after your night's drive, the fresh cream, butter, eggs, 
hot toast, and cold beef, and then, with cigar alight, back 
to the box and off again! 

I once witnessed on that road — not quite that road, for 
the Quicksilver took a somewhat different line — the stage 
of four miles between Ilchester and Ilminster done in 
twenty minutes, and a trace broken and mended on the 
road! The mending was effected by the guard almost 
before the coach stopped. It is a level bit of road, four 
miles only for the entire stage, and was performed at a 
full gallop. That was done by a coach called the Tele- 
graph, which was started some years after the Quicksilver, 
to do the distance from Exeter to London in the day. 
We left Exeter at 5 a.m. and reached London between 
nine and ten, with time for both breakfast and dinner on 
the road. I think the performance of the Exeter Tele- 



26 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

graph was about the ne plus ultra of coach travelling. 
One man drove fifty miles, and then, meeting the other 
coach on the road, changed from one box to the other and 
then drove back again. It was tremendously hard work! 
I once remarked to him as I sat beside him that there was 
not much work for his whip-arm. " Not much, sir," he 
replied; "but just put your hand on my left arm!" I did, 
and felt the muscle swollen to its utmost, and hard as iron. 
"Many people think," he said, "that it is easier work to 
drive such a coach and. such a team as this than to -have 
to flog a dull team up to eight miles an hour. Nobody 
would think so that had ever tried, both!" 

I once persuaded my mother, who was returning with 
me from Exeter to London, to make the journey on the 
box of the Telegraph while I sat behind her. She had. 
been a good deal afraid of the experiment, but admitted 
that she had never enjoyed a journey more. 

But, having been led by my coaching reminiscences to 
speak of my visits to Exeter and to Fanny Bent, I must 
not turn that page of the past without dedicating a few 
lines to one to whom I had great cause to be gratefully 
attached, and whose character, both in its high worth and 
its originality and singularity, was a product of that day 
hardly likely to be reproduced in this. 

Very plain in feature, and dressed with Quaker-like 
simplicity and utter disregard for appearance, her figure 
was as well known in Exeter as the cathedral towers. She 
held a position and enjoyed an amount of respect which 
Avas really singular in the case of a very homely-featured 
old maid of very small fortune. She affected, like some 
other persons I have known both in the far west and the 
far north of England, to speak the dialect of her country. 
Though without any pretension to literary tastes or pur- 
suits, she was a fairly well-read woman, and was perfectly 
able to speak better English than many a Londoner. But 
she chose, icJien in Devonshire, to speak as Devonshire 
folks spoke. She was a thoroughgoing Churchwoman 
and Conservative, though too universally popular with all 
classes to confine her sympathies within any party bounds. 
She had a strong native sense of humor, and, despite the 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 27 

traditions and principles which taught her to consider 
" Peter Pindar " as a reprobate, she could not resist the 
enjoyment of his description of the king's visit to Exeter. 
It was a treat to hear her read the verses in her own Dev- 
on vernacular. And I shall never forget her whispering 
to me as we walked up the nave of the cathedral, ^^ N'ate, 
nate ! Clarie, clane ! Do ye mop it, mop it, Mr. DaneV^ 
And how Dane Buller replied, ''In all our Ex'ter shops 
we do not meet with such long mops. Our mops don't 
reach so high!" I quote possibly incorrectly from the 
recollections of some sixty years ago; and I have never 
studied Mr. Woolcott's works since. But the very tones 
of the dear old lady's voice, as she whispered the words, 
bursting tlie while with suppressed laughter, remain in 
my ears. 

A pious Churchwoman of these improved days would 
not, I take it, select such a place and such a time for such 
whisperings. But I am sure it would be difficult to find 
a better or more sincere Christian than dear old Fanny 
Bent. And the anecdote may be accepted as one more 
illustration of change in manners, feeling, and decencies. 

Then there were strawberry-and-cream parties at a place 
called, if I remember right, Iloopern Bowers, always with 
a bevy of pretty girls, for attracting whom my plain old 
spinster cousin seemed to possess a special secret; and ex- 
cursions to Marypole Head, and drives over Ilaldon Down. 
When I revisited Exeter some months ago Iloopern Bow- 
ers seemed to have passed from the memory of man! And 
whether any one of the laughing girls I had known there 
was still extant as a gray-headed crone I could not learn! 
Marypole Head, too, has been nearly swallowed up by the 
advancing tide of " villas " surging up the hill, though the 
look-down on the other side over Upton Pynes and the 
valley of the Exe is lovely as ever. And Haldon Down, 
at all events, is as breezy as of yore! 

Dr. Bowring — subsequently Sir John — was at that time 
resident in Exeter with his two daughters. The doctor 
was hardly likely to be intimate with Fanny Bent's Con- 
servative and mainly clerical friends, but, knowing every- 
body, she knew him too, and rather specially liked his 



28 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

girls, wlio used to be of our Hoopern Bower parties. Lucy 
Bowring was some years my senior, but I remember think- 
ing her very charming; she was a tall, handsome, dark- 
eyed girl, decidedly clever, and a little more inclined to 
be emancipee in matters ecclesiastical than were the others 
of the little world around her. Then there was gentle 
Rachel Hutchinson! How strangely names that have not 
been in my mind for half a century or more come back to 
me! Rachel was the daughter of a retired physician, a 
widower, whom I recognized as a man of elegant and re- 
fined culture, somewhat superior to the majority of the 
local clergy among whom he lived. I can see him now, a 
slender, somewhat daintily dressed figure, punctiliously 
courteous, with a pleasant, old - world flavor in his man- 
ner; with carefully arranged gray hair, double gold eye- 
glass, a blue swallow-tailed coat, nankeen trousers, and 
polished shoes. But he did not come to Hoopern Bowers. 
His daughter Rachel did; and was curiously contrasted 
with Lucy Bowring in every respect. She was a small, 
sylph-like little figure, with blue eyes, blond hair, very 
pretty and very like an angel. She was also very, very 
religious after the evangelical fashion of that day, and 
gave me a volume of Low-Church literature, which I pre- 
served many years with much sentiment, but, I fear, no 
further profit. T think that the talks which Lucy and 
Rachel and I had together over our strawberries and 
cream must have had some flavor of originality about 
them. I do not imagine that Lucy thought or cared much 
about my soul, but I fancy that Rachel felt herself to be 
contending for it. 

And now, all gone! Probably not one of all those who 
made those little festivities so pleasant to me remains on 
the face of the earth! At all events every one of them 
has many, many j^ears ago passed out of the circle of light 
projected by my magic lantern! 

And how many others have passed like phantasmagoric 
shadows across that little circle of light! It is one of the 
results of such a rolling-stone life as mine has been that 
the number of persons I have known, and even made 
friends of for the time, has been immense; but they all 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 29 

pass like a phantom procession! How many! How many! 
They have trooped on into the outer darkness and been 
lost! 

I suppose that during the half-century, or nearly that 
time — from 1840 to 1886 — that I knew little or nothing of 
England, the change that has come upon all English life 
has been nearly as great in one part of the country as an- 
other. But on visiting Exeter a few months ago I was 
much struck at its altered aspect, because I had known it 
well in my youth. It was not so much that the new 
rows of houses and detached villas seemed to have nearly 
doubled the extent of the city, and obliterated many of 
the old features of it, as that the character of the popula- 
tion seemed changed. It was less provincial — a term which 
cockneys naturally use in a disparaging sense, but which 
in truth implies quite as much that is pleasant as the re- 
verse. It seemed to have been infected by much of the 
ways and spirit of London, without, of course, having any- 
thing of the special advantages of London to offer. Peo- 
ple no longer walked down the High Street along a pave- 
ment abundantly ample for the traffic, nodding right and 
left to acquaintances. Everybody knew everybody no 
longer. The leisurely gossiping ways of the shopkeej^ers 
had been exchanged for the short and sharp promptitude 
of London habits. I recognized, indeed, the well-remem- 
bered tone of the cathedral bells. But the cathedral and 
its associations and influences did not seem to hold the 
same place in the city life as it did in the olden time of 
my young days. There was an impalpable and very in- 
describable, but yet unmistakably sensible something which 
seemed to shut off the ecclesiastical life on one side of the 
close precincts from the tOAvn life on the other, in a man- 
ner which was new to me. I have little doubt that if I 
had casually asked in any large — say — grocer's shop in 
the High Street, who was the canon in residence, I should 
have received a reply indicating that the person inquired 
of had not an idea of what I was talking about; and am 
very sure that half a century ago the reply to the same 
question would have been everywhere a prompt one. 

The lovely garden close under the city wall on the 



30 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

northern side — perhaps the prettiest city garden in Eng- 
land — with its remarkably beautiful view of the cathedral 
(which used to belong to old Edmund Granger, an especial 
crony of Fanny Bent's), exists still, somewhat more closely 
shut in by buildings. We were indeed permitted to Avalk 
there the other day by the kindness of the present pro- 
prietor, merely as members of *' the public," which would 
not have been dreamed of in those old days when "the 
public" was less thought of than at present. But I could 
not help thinking that " the public," and I, as a portion 
and representative of it, must be a terrible nuisance to the 
owner of that beautiful and tranquil spot, so great as seri- 
ously to diminish the value of it. 

Another small difference occurs to me as illustrative of 
the changes that time and the rail have brought about. I 
heard very little of the once familiar Devonshire dialect. 
Something of intonation there may yet linger, but of the 
old idioms and phraseology little or nothing. 

But I have been beguiled into all these reminiscences 
of the fair capital of the west and my early days there 
by the Quicksilver Mail, itself a most compendious and al- 
most complete illustration of the nature of the differences 
between its own day and that of its successor, the rail ! 

To the rail is due principally much of the changed ap- 
pearance of London. Certainly the domestic architecture 
of the Georgian period has little enough of beauty to rec- 
ommend it. It is insignificant, mean, and prosaic to an ex- 
traordinary degree, as we all know. But it is not marked 
by the audacious, ostentatious, nightmare-hideousness of 
the railway arches and viaducts and stations of modern 
London. It is difficult to say whether the greatest change 
in the daily life and habits of a Londoner has been pro- 
duced by gas, by Peel's police, electric telegraphy, mod- 
ern postal arrangements, or the underground railway. Can 
the present generation picture to itself what London was 
and looked like when lighted only by the few twinkling 
oil lamps which seemed to serve no other purpose save to 
make darkness visible ? Can it conceive a London police- 
less by day, and protected at night only by a few heavily 
great-coated watchmen, very generally asleep in their 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 31 

"boxes," and equipped with a huge rattle in one hand 
and a large stable lantern in the other ? The two-penny 
post was considered an immense boon to Londoners and 
their needs of quick communication between the different 
districts of their even then overgrown town. But what 
would they have thought of an almost hourly postal de- 
livery, and of the insufficient quickness of that being sup- 
plemented by telegraphic messages, to be outstripped in 
their turn by telephony ? And what would the modern 
Londoner think of doing without all these things ? 

But perhaps the underground railways have most of 
all revolutionized the London habits of the present day. 
Why, even to me, who knew cabless London, they seem 
to have become indispensable. I loathe them ! The hurry- 
scurry ! The necessity of "looking sharp!" The diffi- 
culty of ascertaining which carriage you are to take, and 
of knowing when you have arrived at your journey's end ! 
The horrible atmosphere ! All strong against the deed ! 
And yet the necessities of time and place in the huge, over- 
grown monster of a town seem to compel me to pass a 
large portion of my hours among the sewers, when I find 
myself a dazed and puzzled stranger in the town I once 
knew so well. 

Another very striking change in the appearance of Lon- 
don in the jubilee year of Queen Victoria as contrasted 
with the London of George the Third and the Regency, is 
caused by the preposterous excess of the system of adver- 
tising. Of course the practice is deeply rooted in causes 
which profoundly affect all the developments of social life 
and modes of thought, as Carlyle well understood. But I 
am now speaking merely of the exterior and surface effect 
of the ubiquitous sheets of paper of all colors of the rain- 
bow, with their monstrous pictorial illustrations. I know 
that to say that it vulgarizes the town to a quite infinite 
degree may be thought to be mere meaningless cant, or 
illiberal affectation, itself truly vulgar. Yet surely the 
accusation must be allowed to be a just one. If brazen- 
faced self-assertion, frantically eager competition in the 
struggle for profit, and the persuasion that this can best be 
attained by the sort of assertions and inducements with 



32 WHAT I KEMEMBER. 

which the walls are covered, be not vulgar, what is ? And 
what of the public which is attracted by the devices which 
the experience of those who cater for it teach them to 
employ ? I miss in the London of the present day a kind 
of shop which was not uncommon in the days when I first 
knew the town — shops at which one description of article 
only was sold, and where that one was to be had notori- 
ously of the best j^ossible quality; shops that appeared to 
despise all the finery of glass and brass and mahogany; 
where prices were not cut down to the lowest possible 
figure by the competitive necessity of underselling, but 
where every article could be trusted to be what it pre- 
tended to be. Shops of this kind never advertised at all, 
but were content to trust for business to the reputation 
they had made for themselves. I am told that everything 
is a great deal cheaper than it used to be, and truly find 
that such is the case. But I am not at all persuaded that 
I get better value for my money. To tell the truth, it 
seems to my old-fashioned notions and habits that in com- 
mercial matters we have arrived at the cheap and nasty 
stage of development. I am a poor man — far too poor 
a man to drink Lafitte Bordeaux. But that need not 
compel me to drink cheap claret or any abomination of 
the kind ! Good ale is far better than bad wine, and 
good water better than bad beer ! At least that is what 
the experience of well-nigh fourscore years has taught 
me ! 

One of my earliest strolls in London revisited lately 
was to the old haunts I had once known so well at Lin- 
coln's Inn. I had walked along the new embankment lost 
in wonder and admiration. The most incorrigible lauda- 
tor temporis acti cannot but admit that nineteenth-century 
London has there done something and possesses something 
which any city on this earth may well be proud of ! And 
so I came to the Temple, and, rambling through its reno- 
vated gardens and courts, thought how infinitely more in- 
viting they looked than anything in Belgrave Square or 
May fair ! Templa quam dilecta! Why, if only a wall 
could be built around the precincts high enough and strong 
enough to shut out London sounds and London smells and 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 33 

London atmosphere, one might be almost as well there as 
in Magdalen at Oxford ! 

And Alsatia too, its next-door neighbor to the eastward, 
all ravaged and routed out, its mysterious courts and light- 
abhorring alleys exposed to the flouting glare of a sun- 
shine baking a barren extent, devoted apparently to dead 
cats and potsherds ! That Whitefriars district used to be 
•a favorite exploring-ground of mine after the publication 
of " The Fortunes of Nigel." How the copper captains, if 
condemned to walk their former haunts, would slink away 
in search of the cover of darksome nooks no longer to be 
found ! What would Miss Trapbois's ghost, wandering in 
the unsheltered publicity of the new embankment, think 
of the cataclysm which has overwhelmed the world she 
knew ! 

Then, marvelling at the ubiquitous railway bridges and 
arches, which seem to return again and again like the re- 
curring horrors of a nightmare dream, I passed westward, 
where the Fleet Prison is not, and where even Temple Bar 
is no more, till I came to Chancery Lane, which seemed to 
retain much of its old dinginess, and passed thence under 
the unchanged old gateway into Lincoln's Inn Old Square, 
where my father's chambers were, and where I used to go 
to him with my nonsense verses. 

Old Square looks much as it used to look, I think. 
And the recollection darted across my mind — who shall 
say why? — of a queer-looking shambling figure, whom my 
father pointed out to me one day from the window of his 
chambers. " That," said he, "is Jockey Bell, perhaps the 
first conveyancer in England. He probably knows more 
of the law of real property than any man breathing." He 
was a rather short, squab-looking, and very shabby figure, 
w^ho walked, I think, a little lame. He came, I was told, 
from the north country, and spoke with a strong Northum- 
brian accent. " It is a dreadful thing to have to decipher 
an opinion of his," said my father; "he is said to have 
three handwritings — one when he is sober, which he can 
read himself; one when he is drunk, which his clerk can 
read; and one next morning after being drunk, which no 
human being can read !" 



34 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

And I looked for the little shabby, stuffy court in 
which I had so often watched Eldon's lowering brow, as 
he doubted over some knotty point. My father had the 
highest opinion of his intellectual power and legal knowl- 
edge. But he did not like him. He used to say that his 
mind was an instrument of admirable precision, but his 
soul the soul of a pedler. I take it Eldon's quintessential 
Toryism was obnoxious to my father's Liberalism. lie 
used to repeat the following "report" of a casein the 
Court of Chancery: 

"Mr. Leech* made a speech; 

'Twas learned, terse, and strong. 
Mr. Hart, on the other part, 

Was neat and glib, but wrong. 
Mr. Parker made it darker ; 

'Twas dark enough without ! 
Mr. Cook cited a book ; 

And the Chancellor said, I doubt." 

Una om nes prcm it n ox ! 

Of course among the other changes of sixty years lan- 
guage had changed. There had been a change, especially 
in pronunciation, a little before my time. Only very old 
and old-fashioned people continued in my earliest years to 
say JRoom for Rome; gould for gold; ohleege for oblige; 
Jecrmes for James (one of our chaplains at Winchester, I 
remember, always used to speak of St. Jeames); a beef- 
steelc foi' a beef-steak; or to pronounce the "a" in danger, 
stranger, and the like, as it is in " man." But it is a sin- 
gular fact, that despite the spread, and supposed improve- 
ment of education, the literary — or perhaps it would be 
better to say the printed — language of the earlier decades 
of the nineteentb century was much more correct than 
that of the latter part of it. I constantly find passages in 
books and newspapers written with the sublimest indif- 
ference to all grammatical rules, and all proprieties of 
construction. A popular writer of fiction says that her 
hero " rose his head !" And another tells her readers that 
something happened when "the brunt of the edge had 

* Subsequently Master of the Rolls. 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 35 

worn off !" There are certain words, such as " idiosyn- 
crasy," " type," " momentary," and many others which I 
cannot while writing recollect, which are constantly used, 
not by one writer only, but by many, to express meanings 
wholly different from those which they really bear. There 
is another word which is worth mentioning, because the 
misuse of it is rapidly becoming endemic. I mean the 
verb "trouble;" which it seems to me all the world before 
the birth of the present generation very well knew to be 
an active, not a neuter verb. Now scarcely a day passes 
without my meeting with such phrases as "he did not 
trouble," meaning, trouble himself; "I hope you won't 
trouble," instead of trouble yourself. To old-fashioned 
ears it seems a detestable vulgarism. But as far as I can 
gather from observing books that have a greater, and 
books that have a lesser, degree of success, and from the 
remarks of the critical journals, a book is in these latter 
days deemed none the worse, nor is at all less likely to 
find favor with the public, because it is full of grammati- 
cal or linguistic solecisms. Now certainly this is an in- 
stance and indication of changed ideas; for it assuredly 
was not the case when George the Third was king. 

Another difference between that day and this of very 
considerable social significance may be observed in the 
character and development of the slang in use. There 
was at the former jDcriod very little slang of the kind that 
may be considered universal. Different classes had differ- 
ent phrases and locutions that were peculiar to them, and 
served more or less as a bond of union and exclusiveness 
as regarded outsiders. The criminal classes had their 
slang. The universities had theirs. There was coster- 
mongers' slang. And there was a slang peculiar to the 
inner circles of the fashionable world, together with many 
other special dialects that might be named. But the spe- 
cialties of these various idioms were not interchangeable, 
nor for the most part intelligible outside the world to 
which they belonged. Nor — and this difference is a very 
notable one — did slang phrases grow intg acceptance with 
the rapidity or universality which now characterizes their 
advent — a notable difference, because it, of course, arises 



36 WHAT I REMEMBER. «l 

from the increased rapidity of communication, and from 
the much greater degree in which all classes and all pro- 
vincial and town populations are mixed together and 
rubbed against each other. It used to be said, and is still 
said by some old-world folks, that the use of slang is vul- 
gar. And the younger generation, which uses it univer- 
sally, ridicules much the old fogey narrowness which so 
considers it. But the truth is, that there was in the 
older time nothing really vulgar in the use of the slang 
which then prevailed. Why should not every class and 
every profession have its own shibboleths and its own 
phrases? And is there not real vulgarity in the mind 
which considers a man vulgar for using the language of 
the class to which he really belongs ? But the modern 
use of slang is truly vulgar for a very different reason. It 
is vulgar because it arises from one of the most intrinsi- 
cally vulgar of all the vulgar tendencies of a vulgar mind 
— imitation. There are slang phrases Avhich, because they 
vividly or graphically express a conception, or clothe it 
with humor, are admirable. But they are admirable only 
in the mouths of their inventors. 

Of course it is an abuse of language to say that the 
beauty of a pretty girl strikes you with awe. But he who 
first said of some girl that she was " awfully " pretty was 
abundantly justified by the half - humorous, half -serious 
consideration of all the effects such loveliness may pro- 
duce. But then, because this was felt to be the case, and 
the 7not was accepted, all the tens of thousands of idiotic 
cretins who have been rubbed down into exact similarity 
to each other by excessive locomotion and the " spread " 
of education — spread indeed after the fashion in which a 
gold-beater spreads his metal — imitate each other in the 
senseless use of it. They are just like the man in the 
"Joe Miller" story, who, because a laugh followed when 
a host, whose servant let fall a dish with a boiled tongue 
on it, said it was only a lapsus lingiice, ordered his own 
servant to throw down a leg of mutton, and then made 
the same remark.! 

There was an old gentleman who had a very tolerable 
notion of what is vulgar and what is not, and who char- 



EARLY DAYS IN LOIiDON. 37 

acterized "imitators" as a "servile herd." And surely, 
if, as we are often told, this is a vulgar age, the fact is 
due to the prevalence of this very tap-root of vulgarity, 
imitation. Of course I am not speaking of imitation in 
any of the various cases in which there is an end in view 
outside the fact of the imitation. The child in order to 
speak must imitate those whom it hears speaking. If you 
would make a pudding, you must imitate the cook ; if a 
coat, the tailor. But the imitation Avhich is essentially 
vulgar, the very tap-root, as I have said, of vulgarity, is 
imitation for imitation's sake. And that is why I think 
modern slang is essentially vulgar. If it is your real 
opinion — right or wrong matters not — that any slang 
j^hrase expresses any idea with peculiar accuracy, vivid- 
ness, or humor, use it by all means; and he is a narrow 
blockhead who sees any vulgarity in your doing so. But 
for Heaven's sake, my dear Dick, don't use it merely be- 
cause you heard Bob use it ! 

Yet there is something pathetically humble too about 
a man so conscious of his own worthlessness as to be ever 
anxious to look like somebody else. And surely a man 
must have a painful consciousness of his inability to utter 
any word of his own with either wit or wisdom or sense in 
it who habitually strives to borrow the wit of the last re- 
tailer of the current slang whom he has heard. 

In some respects, however, this is, I think, a less vulgar 
age than that of my youth. Vulgar exclusiveness on grounds 
essentially illiberal was far more common. It will, per- 
haps, seem hardly credible at the present day that middle- 
class professional society, such as that of barristers, phy- 
sicians, rectors, and vicars, should sixty years ago have 
deemed attorneys and general medical practitioners (or 
apothecaries, as the usual and somewhat dej^reciatory 
term was) inadmissible to social equality. But such was 
the case. My reminiscences of half a century or more ago 
seem to indicate also that professional etiquette has been 
relaxed in various other particulars. I hear of j^hysicians 
being in partnership with others of the same profession — 
an arrangement which has a commercial savor in it that 
would have been thought quite infra dig. in my younger 



38 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

day. I hear also of their accepting, if not perhaps exact- 
ing, payments of a smaller amount than the traditional 
guinea. This was unheard of in the old days. An Eng- 
lish physician is a member of the most generously liberal 
profession that exists or ever existed on earth. And it 
was an every-day occurrence for a phj^sician to think more 
of the purse of his patient than of the value of his own 
services. But he did this either by refusing to accept any 
fee whatever, or by declining it on the occasion of subse- 
quent visits: never by diminishing the amount of it. In 
some other cases professional dignity had to be maintained 
under circumstances that entailed considerable sacrifices 
on those who were called upon to maintain it. It was not 
etiquette, for instance, for a barrister going on circuit to 
travel otherwise than by a private conveyance. He might 
hire a post-chaise, or he might ride his own horse, or even 
a hired one, but he must not travel by a stage-coach or 
put up at a hotel. I have heard it said that this rule 
originated in the notion that a barrister travelling to an 
assize town by the public coach might fall in with some 
attorney bound on a similar errand, and might so be led, 
if not into the sin, at least into temptation to the sin, of 
"buggery." I dare say many a young barrister of the 
present day does not know what buggery means or meant ! 
Among the sights and sounds which were familiar to 
the eye and ear in the London of my youth, and which 
are so no longer, may be mentioned the two-penny post- 
man. Not many probably of the rising generation are 
aware that in their fathers' days the London postal ser- 
vice was dual. The " two-penny postman," who delivered 
letters sent from one part of London to another, was a dif- 
ferent person from the "general postman," Avho delivered 
those which came from the country. The latter wore a 
scarlet, the former a blue livery. And the two adminis- 
trations were entirely distinct. In those days, when a 
letter from York to London cost a shilling, or not much 
less, the weight of a single letter was limited solely by the 
condition that it must be written on one sheet or piece of 
paper only. Two pieces of paper, however small, or how- 
ever light, incurred a double postage. I have sent for a 



EARLY DAYS IN LONDON. 39 

single postage an enormous sheet of double folio outweigh- 
ing some ten sheets of ordinary post paper. Of course 
envelopes were unknown. Every sheet had to be folded 
so that it could be sealed and the address written on the 
back of it. 

Another notable London change which occurs to me is 
that which has come to the Haymarket. In my day it was 
really such. The whole right-hand side of the street goin^ 
downwards, from the Piccadilly end to the Opera House, 
used to be lined with loads of hay. The carts were ar- 
ranged in close order side by side wdth their back parts 
towards the foot pavement, which was crowded by the 
salesmen and their customers. 

I might say a good deal too about the changes in the 
theatrical London world and habits, but the subject is a 
large one, and has been abundantly illustrated. It is more- 
over one which in its details is not of an edifying nature. 
And it must suffice, therefore, to bear my testimony to 
the greatness of the purifying change which has been 
brought about in all the habits of play-goers and play- 
houses mainly and firstly by the exertions of my mother's 
old and valued friend, Mr. Macready. 



CHAPTER III. 

AT HARROW. 

I WAS, I think, about eight years old when my parents 
removed from Keppel Street to Harrow-on-the-Hill. My 
father's practice, I take it, was becoming less and less sat- 
isfactory, and his health equally so. And the move to 
Harrow was intended as a remedy or palliation for both 
these evils. My father was a very especially industrious 
and laborious man. And I have the authority of more 
than one very competent judge among his professional 
contemporaries for believing that he was as learned a 
chancery lawyer as was to be found among them. How, 
then, was his want of success to be accounted for? One 
of the competent authorities above alluded to accounted 
for it thus: "Your father," he said to me many years af- 
terwards, when his troubles and failures had at last ceased 
to afflict him, " never came into contact with a blockhead 
without insisting on irrefutably demonstrating to him that 
he was such. And the blockhead did not like it! He was 
a disputatious man ; and he was almost invariably — at 
least on a point of law — right. But the world differed 
from him in the opinion that being so gave him the right 
of rolling his antagonist in tlie dust and executing an in- 
tellectual dance of triumph on his prostrate form." He 
was very fond of whist, and was, I believe, a good player. 
But people did not like to play with hira. " Many men," 
said an old friend once, " will scold their partners occa- 
sionally. But Trollope invariably scolds us all round wdth 
the utmost impartiality; and that every deal !" 

He was, in a word, a highly respected, but not a popu- 
lar or well-beloved man. Worst of all, alas ! he w^as not 
popular in his own home. No one of all the family circle 
was happy in his presence. Assuredly he was as affec- 
tionate and anxiously solicitous a father as any children 



AT HARROW. 41 

ever had. I never remember his caning, whipping, beat- 
ing, or striking any one of us. But he used, during the 
detested Latin lessons, to sit with his arm over the back 
of the pupil's chair, so that his hand might be ready to 
inflict an instantaneous pull of the hair as the poena (by 
no means joecZe dcmdo) for every blundered concord or false 
quantity ; the result being to the scholar a nervous state 
of expectancy, not judiciously calculated to increase intel- 
lectual receptivity. There was also a strange sort of as- 
cetism about him, which seemed to make enjoyment, or 
any employment of the hours save work, distasteful and 
offensive to him. Lessons for us boys were never over 
and done with. It was sufticient for my father to see any 
one of us "idling," i.e., not occupied with book-work, to 
set us to work quite irrespectively of the previously as- 
signed task of the day having been accomplished. And 
this we considered to be unjust and unfair. 

I have said that the move to Harrow was in some de- 
gree caused by a hope that the change might be beneficial 
to my father's health. He had suffered very distressingly 
for many years from bilious headache, which gradually 
increased upon him during the whole of his life. I may 
say parenthetically that, from about fifteen to forty, I 
suffered occasionally, about once a fortnight perhaps, from 
the same malady, though in a much less intense form. 
But at about forty years old I seemed to have grown out 
of it, and since that time have never been troubled by it. 
But in m.j father's day the common practice was to treat 
such complaints with calomel. He was constantly having 
recourse to that drug. And I believe that it had the effect 
of shattering his nervous system in a deplorable manner. 
He became increasingly irritable; never with the effect of 
causing him to raise a hand against any one of us, but with 
the effect of making intercourse with him so sure to issue 
in something unpleasant that, unconsciously, we sought to 
avoid his presence, and to consider as hours of enjoyment 
only those that could be passed away from it. 

My mother's disposition, on the other hand, was of the 
most genial, cheerful, happy, enjoue nature imaginable. 
All our happiest hours were spent w4th her; and to any 



42 WHAT I REMEMBER. 



A 



one of us a ttte-d-tete with her was preferable to any other 
disposal of a holiday hour. But even this, under all the 
circumstances, did not tend to the general harmony and hap- 
piness of the family circle. For, of course, the facts and 
the results of them must have been visible to my father; 
and though wholly inoperative to produce the smallest 
change in his ways, must, I cannot doubt, have been pain- 
ful to him. It was all very sad. My father was, essen- 
tially, a good man. But he was, I fear, a very unhappy 
one. 

He was extremely fond of reading aloud to the assem- 
bled family in the evening; and there was not one indi- 
vidual of those who heard him who would not have es- 
caped from doing so at almost any cost. Of course it was 
our duty to conceal this extreme reluctance to endure what 
was to him a pleasure — a duty which I much fear was very 
imperfectly performed. I remember — oh, how well ! — the 
nightly readings during one winter of " Sir Charles Gran- 
dison," and the loathing disgust for that production which 
they occasioned. 

But I do not think that I and my brothers were bad 
boys. We were, I take it, always obedient. And one in- 
cident remains in my mind from a day now nearly seventy 
years ago, which seems to prove that the practice of that 
virtue was habitual to me. An old friend of my mother's, 
Mrs. Gibbon, with her daughter Kate, mentioned on a for- 
mer page as the companion of my lessons in the alphabet, 
were staying with us at Harrow. Mrs. Gibbon and Kate 
and my mother and I were returning from a long country 
ramble across the fields in a part of the country my mother * 
was not acquainted with. There was a steep, grassy de- 
clivity down which I and the little girl, my contemporary, 
hand-in-hand, were running headlong in front of our re- 
spective parents, when my mother suddenly called out, 
"Stop, Tom!" I stopped forthwith, and came to heel as 
obediently as a well-trained pointer. And about five min- ] 
utes later my mother and Mrs. Gibbon, following exactly 
in the line in which we had been running, discovered a ' 
long disused but perfectly open and unfenced well! 

If I had not obeyed so promptly as I did I should not 



AT HARROW. 43 

now be writing reminiscences, and poor " Katy 'Bon," as 
I used to call her, would have gone to her rest some ten 
years earlier than she found it. My mother always said 
that she could in no wise account for the impulse which 
prompted her to call me to stop! 

The move to Harrow was as infelicitous a step in the 
economic point of viev^^ as it was inefficacious as a measure 
of health. My father took a farm of some three or four 
hundred acres, to the best of my recollection, from Lord 
Northwick. It was a wholly disastrous speculation. It 
certainly was the case that he paid a rent for it far in ex- 
cess of its fair value; and he always maintained that he 
had been led to undertake to do so by inaccurate and 
false representations. I have no knowledge of these rep- 
resentations, but I am absolutely certain that my father 
was entirely convinced that they were such as he charac- 
terized them. But he was educated to be a lawyer, and 
was a good one. He had never been educated to be a 
farmer; and was, I take it, despite unwearied activity, and 
rising up early and late taking rest, a bad one. 

To make matters worse, moreover, he built on that land, 
of which he held only a long lease, a large and very good 
house. The position was excellently chosen, the house 
was well conceived and well built, and the extensive gar- 
dens and grounds were well designed and laid out; but 
the unwisdom of doing all that on land the property of 
another is but too obvious. 

The excuse that my father might have alleged was that 
he was by no means wholly dependent either on his pro- 
fession or on his farm, or on the not inconsiderable prop- 
erty which he had inherited from his father or enjoyed in 
right of his wife. He had an old maternal uncle, Adol- 
phus Meetkerke, who lived on his estate near Royston, in 
Hertfordshire, called Julians. Mr. Meetkerke — the de- 
scendant of a Dutchman who had come to this country 
some time in the eighteenth century as diplomatic repre- 
sentative of his country, and had settled here — lived at 
Julians with an old childless wife, the daughter, I be- 
lieve, of a General Chapman — and my father was his de- 
clared heir. He had another nephew, Mr. John Young, 



44 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

as flourishing and prosperous an attorney as my father 
was an unsuccessful and unprosperous barrister. John 
Young, too, was as worthy and as highly respected a man 
as any in the profession. But my father, as settled long 
years before, was to be the heir; and I was in due time 
shown to the tenantry as their future landlord, and all 
that sort of thing. I suppose my grandfather, the Rev. 
Anthony Trollope, of Cottenham in Hertfordshire, mar- 
ried an elder sister of old Adolphus Meetkerke, while the 
father of John Young married a younger one. And 
so, come what might of the Harrow farm and the new 
house, I was to be the future owner of Julians, and live 
on my own acres. 

Again, Dis aliter visum! 

I well remember more than one visit to Julians with my 
parents about this time — visits singularly contrasted with 
those to my Grandfather Milton, the Vicar of Heckfield. 
The house and establishment at Julians were on a far more 
pretentious scale than the home of the vicar, and the mode 
of life in the squire's establishment larger and freer. But 
I liked Heckfield better than Julians; partly, I think, even 
at that early age, because the former is situated in an ex- 
tremely pretty country, whereas the neighborhood of the 
other is by no means such. But I please myself with think- 
ing, and do really believe, that the main reason for the 
preference was that the old Bristol saddler's son was a far 
more highly-cultured man than the Hertfordshire squire. 

He was a good man, too, was old Adolphus Meetkerke; 
a good landlord, a kindly-natured man, a good sportsman, 
an active magistrate, and a good husband to his old wife. 
But there was a sort of flavor of roughness about the old 
squire and his surroundings which impressed itself on my 
observation even in those days, and would, I take it, now- 
adays be deemed almost clownish rusticity. 

Right well do I remember the look and figure of my 
Aunt Meetkerke, properly great-aunt-in-law. She was an 
admirable specimen of a squiress, as people and things 
were in that day. I suppose that there was not a poor 
man or woman in the parish with whose affairs of all sorts 
she was not intimately acquainted, and to whom she did 



AT HARROW. 45 

not play the part of an ever-active providence. She alwaj'-s 
came down to breakfast clad in a green riding-habit, and 
passed most of her life on horseback. After dinner, in the 
long, low drawing-room, with its faded stone-colored cur- 
tains and bookless desert spaces, she always slept as peace- 
fully as she does now in Julians phurchyard. She never 
meddled at all with the housekeeping of her establishment. 
That w^as in the hands of " Mrs. Anne," an old maiden sis- 
ter of Mr. Meetkerke. She w^as a prim-looking, rosy-ap- 
ple-faced, most good-natured little w^oman. She always 
carried a little basket in her hand, in which were the keys 
and a never-changed volume of Miss Austen's "Pride and 
Prejudice," which she alwaj^s recommenced as soon as she 
had worked her way to the end of it. Though a very pre- 
cise sort of person, she would frequently come down to 
breakfast a few minutes late, to find her brother standing 
on the hearth-rug with his prayer-book open in his hand, 
waiting for her arrival to begin prayers to the assembled 
household. He had a wonderfully strong, rasping voice, 
the tones of w^hicli were rarely modulated under any cir- 
cumstances. I can hear now his reverberating " Five min- 
utes too late again, Mrs. Anne; ' Dearly beloved brethren,'" 
— etc., tlie change of person addressed and of subject hav- 
ing been marked by no pause or break whatever save the 
sudden kneeling at the head of the breakfast-table; while 
at the conclusion of the short, but never-missed prayers, 
the transition from " Amen " to " William, bring round 
the brown mare after breakfast " was equally unmarked 
by pause or change of voice or manner. 

The parish in w^hich Julians is situated is a small vicar- 
age, the incumbent of which was at that time a bachelor, 
Mr. Skinner. The church Avas a very small one, and my 
great-uncle and his family the only persons in the congre- 
gation above the rank of the two or three small farmers 
and the agricultural laborers who mainly composed it. 
Whethei-' there was any clerk or not I do not remember. 
But if any such official existed, the performance of his 
office in church was altogether not only overlaid but extin- 
guished by the great rough " view-halloo " sort of voice of 
my uncle. He never missed going to church, and never 



46 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

missed a word of the responses, which were given in far 
louder tones than those of the vicar. Something of a 
hjT-mn was always attempted, I rerncmber, by the rustic con- 
gregation; with what sort of musical eifect may be imag- 
ined! I don't think my Uncle Meetkerke could have dis- 
tinficuished much between their efforts and the music of 
the spheres. But the singers were so well pleased with 
the exercise that they were apt to prolong it, as my uncle 
thought, somewhat unduly. And on such occasions he 
would cut the performance short with a rasping "That's 
enough!" which effectually brought it to an abrupt con- 
clusion. The very short sermon — probably a better one 
for the purpose in hand than South or Andrews would have 
preached — having been brought to an end, my uncle Avould 
sing out to the vicar, as he w^as descending the pulpit 
stairs, " Come up to dinner, Skinner!" And then we all 
marched out, while the rustics, still retaining their places 
till we were fairly out of the door, made their obeisances 
as we passed. All which phenomena, strongly contrasted 
as they were with the decorous if somewhat sleepy per- 
formance in my grandfather's church at Ileckfield, greatly 
excited my interest. I remember that I had no dislike to 
attending service either at Ileckfield or Julians, while I 
intensely disliked making one of a London congregation. 

If I remember right there were two or three Dissenters 
and their families at Ileckfield, generally considered by 
their neighbors much as so many Chinese settled among 
them might nave been — as unaccountably strange and as 
objectionable. But nothing of the sort existed at Julians; 
and I take it, as far as may be judged from my uncle's gen- 
eral tone and manner in managing his parish, that any in- 
dividual guilty of such monstrous and unnatural depravity 
would at once have been consigned to the parish stocks. 

Mr. Meetkerke was, as I have said, an active magistrate. 
But only one instance of his activity in this respect dwells 
in my recollection. I remember to have seen, iit the non- 
descript little room that he called his study, a collection 
of some ten or a dozen very nasty -looking pots, with some 
white, pasty looking substance in each of them, and to have 
wondered greatly Avhat mystery could have been attached 



AT HARROW. 47 

to them. I learned from the butler's curt word of infor- 
mation that they were connected with my uncle's magis- 
terial duties, and my mind immediately began to con- 
struct all kinds of imaginings about wholesale poisonings. 
I had heard the story of the "Untori" at Milan, and had 
little doubt that we were in the midst of some such horri- 
ble conspiracy. A few days later I learned that the nasty- 
looking pots were the result of a magisterial raid among 
the bakers, and contained nothing worse than alum. 

These reminiscences of Julians and its little world re- 
curred to me when speaking of my father's financial posi- 
tion at the time he took a farm at Harrow and built a 
handsome house on another man's land. He was at that 
time Mr. Meetkerke's declared heir, and would doubtless 
have inherited his property in due time had childless old 
Mrs. Meetkerke lived. But one day she unexpectedly took 
off her green habit for the last time, and in a day or two 
was laid under yet more perennial green in the little church- 
yard ! Mr. Meetkerke was at that time over sixty. But he 
was as fine an old man physically as anybody could wish 
to see. Before long he married a young wife, and became 
the father of six children! It was of course a tremendous 
blow to my father, and never, as I can say from much sub- 
sequent information, was such a blow better or more brave- 
ly borne. As for myself, I cannot remember that the cir- 
cumstance impressed me as having any bearing whatso- 
ever on my personal fate and fortunes. In after-years I 
heard it asserted in more than one quarter that my father 
had in a great measure himself to thank for his disap- 
pointment. He was a Liberal in politics after the fashion 
of those days (which would make excellent Conservatism 
in these), while Mr. Meetkerke was a Tory of the very 
oldest school. The Tory uncle was very far indeed from 
being an intellectual match for his Liberal nephew, and no 
doubt used to talk in his fine old hunting-field voice a 
great deal of nonsense which no consideration of either 
affection, respect, or prudence could induce my father to 
spare. I fear he used to jump on the hearty old squire 
very persistently, with the result d la longue of ceasing 
to be a persooid gratd to the old man. It may be that 



48 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

had it been otherwise he might have sought affection 
and companionship elsewhere than from a young wife. 
But . . . ! 

My father, as I have said, struggled bravely with fort- 
une, but, as far as I have ever been able to learn, with ever- 
increasing insuccess. His practice as a barrister dwin- 
dled away gradually till it became not worth while to 
keep chambers; and his farming accounts showed very 
frequently — every year, I suspect — a deficit. 

One of the reasons for selecting Harrow as his scene of 
rustication had been the existence of the school there. I 
and my brothers were all of us destined from our cradles to 
become Wykehamists, and it was never my father's inten- 
tion that Harrow, instead of Winchester, should be our 
definitive place of education. But the idea was that we 
might, before going to Winchester, avail ourselves of the 
right to attend his parish school, which John Lyon be- 
queathed to the parishioners of Harrow. 

I went to Winchester at ten years old. The time for 
me to do so did not wholly depend on the will of my par- 
ents, for the admission in those days, as in all former days 
up to quite recent times, was by nomination in this wise. 
There were six electors: 1, the Warden of New College 
(otherwise, more accurately in accordance with the terms 
of Wykeham's foundation, the College of St. Mary Win- 
ton pro^yeWmion); 2, the Warden of Winchester Col- 
lege; 3, the Sub-warden of Winchester; 4, the "Informa- 
tor" or head -master of Winchester; and 5 and 6, two 
"Posers," sent yearly by New College, according to a 
cycle framed ad hoc, to the Winchester election. It was 
at the election which took place in July that all vacancies 
among the seventy scholars, who, together w4th the war- 
den, fellows, two masters, chaplains, and choristers, con- 
stituted the members of Wykeham's foundation, were 
filled. The vacancies were caused either by the election 
of scholars to be fellows of New College, or by their su- 
perannuation at eighteen years of age, or by their with- 
drawal from the school. The number of vacancies in any 
year was, therefore, altogether uncertain. The first two 
vacancies were filled by boys who came in as "College 



AT HARROW. 49 

Founders," i. e., as of kin to the founder. Of course the 
bishop's kin could be only collateral; and I remember 
that " the best blood " was considered to be that of the 
Twistletons. Originally there had been an absolute pref- 
erence for those who could show such relationship. But, 
as time went on, it became apparent that the entire col- 
lege would thus be filled with founder's kin; and it was 
determined that two such only should be admitted to 
Winchester every year, and two only sent out to fellow- 
ships at New College. Even so the proportion of fellow- 
ships at the Oxford college awarded to founder's kin was 
large, for it was reckoned in those days that the average 
vacancies at New College, which were caused only by 
death, marriage, or the acceptance of a college living, 
amounted to seven in two years, of which the founder's 
kin took four. And this rule operated with certain regu- 
larity. For the superannuation at eighteen did not apply 
to founder's kin, who remained in the school, be their age 
what it might, till they went to New College. 

These two boys of founder's kin were admitted by the 
votes of the six electors. After them came the boy nom- 
inated by the Warden of New College; then the nominee 
of the Warden of Winchester; and so on till the eighth 
vacancy was filled by the nominee of the junior ** Poser." 
Then a ninth vacancy was taken by the Warden of New 
College's second nomination, and so on. Of course the 
vacancies for Winchester were much more numerous than 
those for the Oxford college; and it often happened that 
the "Poser's" second, or sometimes even third, nomina- 
tion had a very good chance of getting in in the course of 
the year. The cycle for "Posers," which I have men- 
tioned, allowed it to be known who would be " Poser " for 
a given year many years in advance; and the senior " Pos- 
er's" first nomination for 1820 had been promised to me 
before I was out of my cradle. He was the Rev. Mr. 
Lipscomb, who subsequently became Bishop of Jamaica. 
It was written, therefore, in the book of fate that I was 
to go to Winchester in the year 1820, when I should be ten 
years old. 

That time, however, was not yet; but was looked for- 
3 



50 WHAT I REMEMBER. ^J 

ward to by me with a somewhat weighty sense of the in- 
evitability of destiny. And I can well remember medi- 
tating on the three fateful epochs which awaited me — to 
wit, having certain teeth taken out in the immediate fut- 
ure; going to Winchester in the paulo post futiirum ; and 
being married in the ultimate consummation of things. 
All three seemed to me to need being faced with a certain 
dogged fortitude of endurance. But I think that the ter- 
rors of the first loomed the largest in my imagination, 
doubtless by virtue of its greater proximity. 

I remember, too, at a very early age maintaining in my 
own mind, if not in argument with others, that to be brave 
one must be very much afraid and act in despite of fear, 
and uninfluenced by it, and that not to fear at all, as I 
heard predicated of themselves by sundry contemporaries, 
indicated simply stupidity. And when the day for the 
dentist came my heart was in my boots, but they carried 
me unfalteringly to St. Martin's Lane all the same. 

At present, however, we are at Harrow, getting into my 
father's new house, and establishing ourselves in our new 
home. It was soon arranged that I was to attend the 
school, scarcely, as I remember, as a regular inscribed 
scholar attending the lessons in the schoolroom, but as a 
private pupil of the Rev. Mark Drury. I was about eight 
years old at the time, and I suppose should hardly have 
been accepted as an admitted member of the school. 

At that time Dr. Butler, afterwards Bishop of Peter- 
borough, was the head-master. He was not the right man 
in the right place. He was, I take it, far more adapted 
for a bishop than a school-master. Moreover, there were 
certain difliculties in his position not necessarily connected 
with the calling of a head-master. He had succeeded Dr. 
Drury in the head -mastership, and he found the school 
full of Drury 8. Mark, the brother of Dr. Drury, was the 
second master; a Mr. Evans, a respectable, quiet nonenti- 
ty, was the third; Harry Drury, a son of the old doctor 
was the fourth, and was the most energetic and influential 
man in the place; William Drury, the son of Mark, was 
the fifth; and two young men of the names of Mills and 
Batten were the sixth and seventh masters. They were 



AT HARROW. 51 

all in priests' orders, and all received as many boarders as 
they could get. For the objectionable system, which 
made the fortunes of the masters far more dependent on 
their trade as victuallers than on their profession as teach- 
ers, had been copied from Eton, with the further evil con- 
sequence of swamping John Lyon's parochial school by 
the creation of a huge boarding-school. This, however 
eminently successful, has no proper claim to be called a 
"public school," save by a modern laxity of language, 
which has lost sight of the fact that the only meaning or 
possible definition of a " public school " is one. the founda- 
tion of which was intended, not for a parish or other dis- 
trict, but for all England. If merely success, and conse- 
quent size, be held to confer a claim to the title, it is clear 
that there is no " private " school which would not become 
a " public school " to-mdrrow if the master and proprietor 
of it could command a sufficient amount of success. And 
even then the question would remain. What amount of 
success must that be ? 

The world in general, however, dislikes accuracy of 
speaking. And Harrow was then, and has been since, 
abundantly large enough and successful enough to be 
called and considered a " public school " by the generality, 
who never take the trouble to ask themselves, What makes 
it such ? 

Dr. Butler was eminently a gentleman, extremely suave 
in manner, gentle in dealing with those under his author- 
ity, mild and moderate in his ideas of discipline, a genu- 
inely scholarly man in tastes and pursuits, though prob- 
ably not what experts in such a matter would have called 
a profound scholar. But he had not the energetic hand 
needed for ruling a large school; and his rule was not a 
success. Mark Drury, though from the old Drury con- 
nection his house was always full of pupils, cannot be said 
to have exercised any influence at all on the general con- 
dition and management of the school by reason of the 
extraordinary and abnormal corpulence which kept him 
pretty well a prisoner to the arm-chair in his study. He 
had long since, at the time when I first knew him, aban- 
doned the practice of "going ujj," as it was technically 



52 WHAT I REMEMBER. 



1 



called, i. e., of climbing the last portion of Harrow Hill 
through the viUage street. On this topmost part of the 
hill are situated the church, the churchyard, and the 
school-house, rebuilt, enlarged, beautified, since my day; 
and this " going up " had to be performed by all the mas- 
ters and all the boys every time school was attended. But 
of this climb Mark Drury had been incapable for many 
years, solely by reason of his immense corpulence. Natu- 
rally a small, delicately-made man, with small hands and 
feet, he had become in old age the fattest man I think I 
ever saw. ,He used to sit in his study, and there conduct 
the business of tuition, leaving to others the work of hear- 
ing lessons in school. 

His house had the reputation of being the most com- 
fortable of all the boarding-houses — a fact due to the un- 
stinting liberality, careful supervision, and motherly kind- 
ness of " Mother Mark," an excellent and admirable old 
lady, than whom it would be impossible to conceive any 
one more fitted for the position she occupied. The un- 
stinting liberality, it is fair to say, characterized all the 
Drury houses; and probably the others also. But for truly 
motherly care there was but one " Mother Mark." " Old 
Mark" was exceedingly popular, as, indeed, he deserved 
to be, for a more kindly-natured man never existed. He 
had an old-fashioned belief in the virtues of the rod; and 
though his bodily infirmity combined with his good-nat- 
ure to make him sparing in the application of it, a flog- 
ging was at his hands sufiiciently disagreeable to make 
one desirous of avoiding it. " Your clock," he would say, 
"requires to be wound up every Monday morning," mean- 
ing that a Monday-morning flogging was a good beginning 
of the week. But the rods were kept in a cupboard in the 
study — how well I remember the Bluebeard-closet sort of 
reputation which surrounded it! — and the cupboard was 
always kept locked. And very often it happened that, 
somehow or other, the key was in the keeping of Mrs. 
Drury. Then a message would be sent to Mrs. Drury for 
the key, and very probably the proposed patient was the 
messenger, in which case — and it is strange that the re- 
currence of the fact did not suggest suspicion t6 old Mark 



AT HARROW. 53 

— it almost invariably happened that Mi's. Drury was very 
sorry, but she could not find the key anywhere! There 
never surely was a key so frequently mislaid as the key of 
that terrible cupboard! 

Well, it was arranged that I was to go every day to 
Mark Drury's study, not, as I have said, as a regular mem- 
ber of the school, but to get such tuition as might be 
picked up from the genius loci, and from such personal 
teaching as the old man could bestow on me at moments 
unoccupied by his own pupils. And this arrangement, it 
must be understood, was entirely a matter of friendship — 
one incident of the many years' friendship between my 
parents and all the Drurys. There was no question of any 
honorarium in the matter. 

My father's appetite for teaching was such that he 
would, I am very sure, have much preferred keeping my 
brother and myself under his sole tuition. But he used 
to drive up to London in his gig daily to his chambers in 
Lincoln's Inn, for he still struggled to hope on at his pro- 
fession. (I remember that these drives down in the dark 
winter evenings became a source of some anxiety when a 
messenger ti-avelling with despatches for the French min- 
ister, who at that time rented Lord Northwick's house at 
Harrow, was mysteriously murdered and his despatches 
stolen.) And it thus became necessary that some means 
should be found for preventing us boys from making ecoh 
huissonnitre in the fields and under the hedgerows. 

I do not think I profited much by my attendance at old 
Mark's pupil-room. The boys whose lessons he was hear- 
ing stood in a row in front of his arm-chair, and I sat be- 
hind him, supposed to be intently occupied in conning the 
task he had set me, in preparation for the moment when, 
the class before him having been dismissed, he would have 
little me, all alone, in front of him for a few minutes, 
while another class was mustering. 

How I hated it all I How very much more bitterly I 
hated it than I ever hated any subsequent school troubles I 
"What a pariah I was among those denizens of Mark's and 
other pupil-rooms! For I was a "town boy," "village 
bov " would have been a more correct desisrnation ; one of 



64 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

the very few who by the terms of the founder's will had 
any right to be there at all ; and was in consequence an 
object of scorn and contumely on the part of all thejo«y- 
ing pupils. I was a charity boy. But at Winchester sub- 
sequently I was far more of a charity boy, for William of 
Wykeham's foundation provided me with food and lodg- 
ing as well as tuition ; whereas I claimed and received 
nothing save a modicum of the latter at the hands of those 
who enjoyed and administered John Lyon's bounty. Yet, 
though at Winchester there were only seventy scholars 
and a hundred and thirty private pupils of the head-mas- 
ter, or *' commoners," there was no trace whatsoever of 
any analogous feeling, no slightest arrogation of any su- 
periority, social or other, on the part of the commoner 
over the collegian. In fact the matter was rather the 
other way; any difference between the son of the presum- 
ably richer man and the presumably poorer having been 
merged and lost sight of entirely in the higher scholastic 
dignity of the college boy. 

I remember also, more vividly than I could wish, the 
bullying to which I and others were subjected at Harrow. 
There was much of a very brutal description. And in 
this respect also the difference at Winchester was very 
marked. The theory of the two places on the subject was 
entirely different, with the result I have stated. At Har- 
row, in those days — how it may be now I know not — no 
" fagging " was authorized or permitted by the masters. 
No boy had any legitimate authority over any other boy. 
And inasmuch as it was, is, and ever will be in every large 
school impossible to achieve such a Saturnian state of 
things, the result was that the bigger and stronger assumed 
an authority supported by sheer violence over the smaller 
and weaker. At Winchester, on the other hand, the sub- 
jection of those below them in college to the " prefects," 
or upper class, was not only recognized, but enforced, 
by the authorities. It thus came to pass that many a 
big, hulking fellow was subjected to the authority of a 
"prefect" whom he could have tossed over his head. It 
was an authority nobody dreamed of resisting; a matter 
of courser not a rule of the stronger supported by violence. 



AT HARROW. 55 

And the result — contributed to, also, by other arrange- 
ments, of which I shall speak hereafter — was that any- 
thing of the nature of " bullying " was infinitely rarer at 
Winchester than at Harrow. 

Despite old Mark's invariable good-nature and kindness, 
my hours in his study were very unhappy ones; and I was 
hardly disposed to consider as a misfortune a severe illness 
which attacked me and my brother Henry, and for the 
nonce put an end to them. Very shortly it became clear 
that we were both suffering from a bad form of typhus. 
How was such an attack to be accounted for? My father's 
new house was visited, and examined, and found to be 
above suspicion. But further inquiry elicited the fact that 
we boys had passed a half-hour before breakfast in watch- 
ing the proceedings of some men engaged in cleaning and 
restoring an old drain connected with a neighboring farm- 
house. The case was clear! It would seem, however, 
that the proper mode of treatment was not so clear to the 
Harrow general practitioner — a village apothecary of the 
old school, who, strange as it may seem, was the only 
available medico at Harrow in those far-off days. He 
treated us with calomel, and very, very nearly let me slip 
through his hands. It would have been quite, but for a 
fortunate chance. Among our Harrow friends was a Mrs. 
Edwards, the widow of a once very well-known bookseller 
— not a publisher, but a scholarly, and indeed learned, 
seller of old books — who had, I believe, left her a consider- 
able fortune. She was a highly cultured and very clever 
woman, and a special friend of my mother's. Now it so 
happened that a Dr. Butt, a physician, her brother, or 
brother-in-law, I forget which, paid her a visit just at the 
time we boys were at the worst. Mrs. Edwards brought 
him to our bedsides. I was altogether unconscious, and 
had been raving about masters coming in at the window 
to drag me off to the pupil-room. My knowledge of what 
followed, therefore, is derived wholly from my mother's 
subsequent telling. Dr. Butt, having learned the treat- 
ment to which we had been subjected, said only, " No more 
calomel, I think. Let me have a glass of port wine im- 
mediately." And with his finger on my wrist, he pro- 



56 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

ceeded to administer a teaspoonf ul at a time of the cordial 
A few more visits from Dr. Butt set us fairly on the way 
to recovery; and from that day, some sixty-eight years 
ago, to the present, I have never passed one day in bed 
from illness. "^ 



CHAPTER IV. 

AT HARROW — {continued). 

Another incident of these boyish years of a very dif- 
ferent complexion has made a far deeper impression on 
my memory. It must have been, to the best of my re- 
membrance, about the same time, probably some six 
months later in the same year, that it was decided that I 
was to accompany my father and mother in a " long vaca- 
tion " ramble which had long been projected. My father's 
method of travel on this excursion, which was to include 
parts of Sussex, Hampshire, Wilts, Devon, Somerset, and 
Monmouth, was to drive my mother and myself in his 
gig, accompanied by a servant riding another horse, who 
was provided with a pair of traces to hook on as tandem 
whenever the nature of the road required such assistance. 
I think that this tour afforded me some of the happiest 
days and hours I have ever known. I can never forget 
the ecstacy of delight with which I looked forward to it, 
and the preparations I made — suggested probably, some of 
them, by the experiences of Robinson Crusoe. The dis- 
tance and differentiation between me and other boys of my 
acquaintance, which was caused by my destination to this 
great adventure, I felt to be such as that which may be 
supposed to exist between Livingstone and the stay-at- 
home mortals who read his books. 

We started after breakfast one fine morning, " George," 
the footman, turned into groom and courier, riding after 
the gig. I considered this a disappointingly tame proceed- 
ing. I had been up myself considerably before daylight, 
and considered that, looking to the arduous nature of the 
journey before us (we were to sleep at Dorking that night), 
we ought at least to have been on the road while the less 
adventurous part of the world were still asleep. 

We had not proceeded many miles before an amari 
3* 



68 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

aliquid disclosed itself of a very distressing kind. I was 
seated on a little box placed on the floor of the gig be- 
tween the knees of my father and mother, and was " as 
happy as a prince," or probably much happier than any 
contemporaneous prince then in Christendom, when my 
father produced from out of the driving-seat beneath him 
a Delphin " Virgil," and intimated to me that our journey 
must by no means entail an entire interruption of my edu- 
cation ; that our travelling was not at all incompatible 
with a little study; and that he was ready to hear me con- 
strue. It may be readily imagined how much such " study " 
was likely to profit nae. Every incident of the road, every 
wagon, every stage-coach we met, every village church 
seen across the fields, every milestone even, was a matter 
of intense interest to me. Had I been Argus-eyed every 
eye would have been busy. I remember that my mother 
remonstrated, but in vain. And an hour or two of other- 
wise intense delight was turned into something which it is 
scarcely an exaggeration to call torture. I think, how- 
ever, that my mother must have subsequently renewed her 
pleadings, for on the second day's journey the "Virgil" 
was not brought out. It was reserved for the days when 
we were stationary, but no longer poisoned our absolute 
travel. 

If I never became a distinguished scholar it was assur- 
edly from no want of urgency in season and out of season 
on the part of my poor father. But not even Virgil him- 
self, backed by an " Eton Latin Grammar " and a small 
travelling-dictionary, could altogether destroy the manifold 
delights of that journey. I must not inflict on my reader 
all, or a tithe, of my topographical reminiscences; but I 
will relate one little adventure which went near to saving 
me, not only from this volume, but from all that half a 
century, and more, of subsequent pen-work may have in- 
flicted on me. It was at Gloucester. My parents and I 
had gone to the cathedral about a quarter of an hour be- 
fore the time for service on a Sunday morning. The great 
bell was being rung — an operation which was at that time 
performed by seven bell-ringers down in the body of the 
church. One large rope, descending from an aperture in 



AT HARROW. 59 

the vault, was, at some dozen or so of feet from the pave- 
ment, divided into seven — one for each of the bell-ringers. 
Now it so happened that on that day one of the men was 
absent from his post, and one rope hung loose and unoc- 
cupied. No sooner had I espied this state of things than 
I rushed forward and seized the vacant rope, intending to 
add my efforts to those of the six men at work. But it so 
happened that at the moment when I thus clutched the 
rope the men had raised the bell, and of course at the end 
of their pull allowed the ropes to fly upwards through 
their hands. But I, knowing nothing of bell - ringing, 
clung tightly to my rope, and was of course swung up 
from the pavement with terrific speed. Fortunately the 
height of the vault was so great as to allow the full swing 
of the bell to complete itself without bringing me into 
contact with the roof. The men cried out to me to hold 
on tight. I did so, and descended safely — so unharmed 
that I was very desirous of repeating the experiment, 
which, as may be supposed, was not allowed. I can pull 
a bell more knowingly now. 

The charming old church at Gloucester was not kept 
and cared for in those days as it is now — a remark which 
is applicable, as recent visits have shown me, to nearly all 
the cathedral churches in England. I may observe also, 
since one object of these pages is to mark the social 
changes in English life since my young days, that the 
improvement in the tone and manner of performing the 
choral service in our cathedrals is as striking as the in- 
creased care for the fabrics. It used for the most part 
to be a careless, perfunctory, and not very reverent or 
decorous performance when George the Third was King. 
Those were the days when one minor canon could be 
backed to give another to " Pontius Pilate " in the Creed, 
and beat him! Other times, other manners! 

I think that the points in that still well-remembered 
tour that most of all delighted me were, first of all, Lynton 
and Lynmouth, on the north coast of Devon; then the banks 
of the Wye from Chepstow to Ross; and thirdly, Raglan 
Castle. I had already read the "Mysteries of Udolpho," 
with more enjoyment probably than any other reading has 



60 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

ever afforded me. It was an ecstasy of delight, tempered 
only by the impossibility of gratifying my intense longing 
to start forthwith to see the places and countries described. 
And when I did in long-after years see them ! Oh, Mrs. 
Ratcliffe, how could you tell such tales! What! this the 
lovely Provence of my dreams ? But I was fresh from 
" The Mysteries," and full of faith when I went to Raglan, 
and strove to apply, at least as a matter of possibility, the in- 
cidents of the romance to the localities of the delightful ruin. 
Nor was Raglan in those days cared for with the loving 
care now bestowed on it by the Duke of Somerset. I have 
heard people complain of the restrictions, and of the small 
entrance fee now demanded for admittance to the ruins, 
and regret the days when the traveller could, as in my 
time, wander over every part of it at will. All that was 
very charming, but the place was not as beautiful as it is 
now. The necessary expense for the due conservation of 
the ruins must be very considerable. And when one hears, 
as I did recently at Raglan, that steam and bank-holidays 
have brought as many as fifteen hundred (!) visitors to the 
spot in one day, it may be easily imagined what the con- 
dition of the place would shortly become if careful restric- 
tions were not enforced. Of lovely — ever lovely — Tintern 
the same remarks may be made. Certainly there was a 
charm in wandering there, as I did when a boy, almost 
justified by the solitude in feeling myself to be the dis- 
coverer of the spot. Now there is a fine hotel, with waiters 
in black-tailed coats, and dinners a la carte! And huge 
vans pouring in " tourists " by the thousand. Between 
four and five thousand persons, I was told, visited Tintern 
in one August day ! Scott tells those who would " view 
fair Melrose aright " to " visit it by the pale moonlight." 
But I fear me that no such precaution could secure solitude, 
though it might beauty, at Tintern in August. But the 
care bestowed upon it makes the place more beautiful than 
ever. The guardians, by dint of locked gates, prevent the 
lovely sward from being defiled by sandwich papers and 
empty bottles, as the neighboring woods are. But he who 
would view fair Tintern aright had better not visit it on 
a bank-holiday. 



AT HARROW. 61 

A similarly striking chaDge between the England of sixty- 
years since and the England of to-day may be observed at 
beautiful Lynmouth and Lynton. The place was a solitude 
when my parents and I visited it in, I think, 1818. We 
had a narrow escape in driving down from Lynton to the 
mouth of the little stream. A low wall of unmortared 
stones alone protected the road from the edge of a very 
formidable precipice ; and just at the worst point the 
horse my father was driving took fright at something, 
and, becoming unmanageable, dashed at the low wall, and 
absolutely got his fore-feet over it ! " George," riding the 
other horse behind, was at a hundred yards or so distance. 
But my father, with one bound to the horse's head, caught 
him by the bridle, and, by the sheer strength of his re- 
markably powerful frame, forced him back into the road. 
It was not a mauvais quart d'heiire, but a very mauvais 
quart de minute — for it was, I take it, all over in that 
time. Now the road is excellent, and traversed daily in 
the summer season by some half-dozen huge vans carrying 
" tourists" from Ilfracombe to Lynton. 

At the latter place, too, there is a large and extremely 
prettily situated hotel, where, on the occasion of my first 
visit, I remember that we obtained a modicum of bread- 
and-cheese at a lone cottage. Even the Valley of Rocks 
is not altogether what it was, for the celebrated "Castle 
Rock " has now well-contrived paths to the top of it. I 
wrote a few months ago in the book kept at the hotel, ad 
hoc that I had climbed the Castle Rock more than sixty 
years ago, and had now repeated the feat. But, in truth, 
the "climb" was in those days a different affair. I re- 
member my mother had a story of some old friend of hers 
having been accompanied by her maid during a ramble 
through the Valley of Rocks, and having been told, when 
she asked the maid what she thought of it, that she con- 
sidered it was kept very untidy ! And truly the criticism 
might be repeated at the present day not altogether un- 
reasonably, for the whole place is defiled by the traces of 
feeding. 

Truly England, whether for better or worse, " 7i07i ^piu 
come era prima .-'" 



62 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

That was my first journey ! Has any one of the very 
many others which I have undertaken since equalled it in 
enjoyment ? Ah ! how sad was the return to Harrow and 
lessons and pupil-room ! And how I wished that the old 
gig, with me on the little box between my parents' knees, 
could have been bound on an expedition round the world! 

A leading feature, perhaps I should say the leading feat- 
ure, of the social life of Harrow in those days consisted in 
a certain antagonism between the vicar, the Rev. Mr. Cun- 
ningham, and the clerical element of the school world, or 
perhaps it would be more correct to say the Drury ele- 
ment. Mr. Cunningham was in those days rather a man 
of mark among the Low-Church party. He w^as an ally 
of the Venns, of Daniel Wilson, and that school, and was 
well known in his day as "Velvet-Cushion Cunningham," 
from a little book with that title which he had published. 
He was, of course, an "evangelical" of the evangelicals; 
and among the seven masters of the school there was not 
the slightest — I must not say taint, but — savor of anything 
of the kind. Dr. Butler probably would have found no 
difficulty in living in perfect harmony with the vicar ; but 
the latter — he and his ways and his doctrines — were espe- 
cially abhorrent to the Drurys. Of course they were not 
High-Churchmen in the sense which the term has acquired 
in these latter days, for nothing of the kind was then 
known. They were of the old-fashioned sort, which had 
come to be somewhat depreciatingly spoken of as "high 
and dry !" — though in truth it is difficult to see with what 
justice the latter epithet could be applied to many of them. 

Harry Drury, who was perhaps foremost in his feeling 
of antagonism to the vicar, was a man of decidedly literary 
tastes, though they shared his devotion with those of a hon 
vivant. He was a ripe scholar, and undoubtedly the vicar's 
superior in talent and intellect. But he was essentially a 
coarse man, coarse in manner and coarse in feeling. Cun- 
ningham was the re/erse of all this. He was, I believe, 
the son of a London hatter^ but in external manner and 
appearance he was a more gentlemanlike man than any of 
the Harrow masters of that day, save Dr. Butler. He had 
the iidvantage, too, of a handsome person and good pres- 



AT HARROW. 63 

enoe. But there was a something too suave and too soft, 
carrying with it a certain suspicion of insincerity which 
prevented him from presenting a genuine specimen of the 
real article. I believe his father purchased the living for 
him under circumstances w^hich were not altogether free 
from suspicion of simony. I know nothing, however, of 
these circumstances, and my impressions on the subject are 
doubtless derived from the flouts and skits of his avowed 
enemies the Drurys. There was, I remember, a story of 
his having, soon after coming to Harrow^, in conversation 
with some of his new parishioners, attributed w4th much 
self-complacency his presentation to the living to his hav- 
ing upon some occasion preached before Lord Northwick! 
— a result which no Harrow inhabitant, clerk or layman, 
would have believed in the case of his lordship, then often 
a resident on his property there, if the preacher had been 
St. Paul. But again, Audi alteram partem ! which I had 
no chance of doing, for we, though living on terms of 
neighborly intercourse with the vicar, were of the Drury 
faction. 

I remember well an incident which may serve to illus- 
trate the condition of " tension " which prevailed during 
those years in the little Harrow world. Mark Drury had 
two remarkably pretty daughters. They were in all re- 
spects as thoroughly good and charming girls as they 
were pretty, and were universal favorites in society. Now 
Mark Drury's pew in the parish church, where, of course, 
he never appeared himself, for the reason assigned on a 
former page, was situated immediately below the pulpit. 
And on one occasion the vicar saw, or thought he saw, the 
two young ladies in question laughing during his sermon, 
and so far forgot himself, and was sufficiently ill-judged, 
indiscreet, wrong-headed, and wrong-hearted to stop in his 
discourse, and, leaning over the pulpit cushion, to say aloud 
that he would resume it when his hearers could listen to it 
with decency! The amount of ill-feeling and heart-burn- 
ing which the incident gave rise to may be imagined. 
Harry Drury, the cousin of the young ladies, and, as I have 
said, Cunningham's principal antagonist, never for a long 
time afterwards came within speaking distance of the 



64 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

vicar without growling " Brawler !" in a perfectly audible 
voice. 

I well remember, though I suppose it must be mainly 
from subsequent hearing of it, the storm that was raised 
in the tea-cup of the Harrow world by the incident of 
Byron's natural daughter, Allegra, having been sent home 
to be buried in Harrow Church. A solemn meeting was 
held in the vestry, at which the vicar, all the masters (ex- 
cept poor old Mark), and sundry of the leading parishion- 
ers were present, and at which it was decided that no stone 
should be placed to commemorate the poor infant's name, 
or mark the spot where her remains rested, the principal 
reason assigned being that such a memorial might be in- 
jurious to the morals of the Harrow schoolboys! Amid 
all this Cunningham's innate and invincible flunkeyism 
asserted itself, to the immense amusement of the non-evan- 
gelical part of the society of the place, by his attempt to 
send a message to Lord Byron through Harry Drury, 
Byron's old tutor and continued friend, to the effect that 
he, Cunningham, had, on reading (7«m, which was then 
scandalizing the world, "felt a profound admiration for 
the genius of the author!" " Did you, indeed," said Harry 
Drury; " I think it the most blasphemous publication that 
ever came from the pen." 

The whole circumstances, object, and upshot of this sin- 
gular vestry meeting were too tempting a subject to escape 
my mother's satirical vein. She described the whole affair 
in some five hundred verses, now before me, in which the 
curiously contrasted characteristics of the debaters at the 
meeting were very cleverly hit off. This was afterwards 
shown to Harry Drury, who, though he himself was not 
altogether spared, was so delighted with it that he re- 
warded it by the present of a very remarkable autograph 
of Lord Byron, now in my possession. It consists of a 
quarto page, on which is copied the little poem, " Weep, 
daughters of a royal line," beginning with a stanza which 
was suppressed in the publication. And all round the 
edges of the MS. is an inscription stating that the verses 
were " copied for my friend, the Rev. Harry Drury." 

Of course, all this did not tend much to harmonize the 



AT HARROW. 65 

conflicting partisans of High and Low Church in the Har- 
row world of that day. 

I may add here another " reminiscence " of those days, 
which is not without significance as an illustration of 
manners. 

Among the neighbors at Harrow was a Mr. (well, 

I won't print the name, though all the parties in question 
must long since, I suppose, have joined the majority), who 
had a family of daughters, the second of whom was ex- 
ceedingly pretty. One day this girl, of some eighteen 
years or so, came to my mother, who was always a special 
friend of all the young girls, with a long, eulogistic defence 
of the vicar. She was describing at much length the de- 
light of the assurances of grace which he had given her, 
when my mother, suddenly looking her straight in the eyes, 
said, " Did he kiss you, Carrie ?" 

" Yes, Mrs. Trollope. He did give me the kiss of peace. 
I am sure there was no harm in that !" 

" None at all, Carrie ! For I am sure you meant none !" 
returned my mother. " Honi soit qui mal y pense! But 
remember, Carrie, that the kiss of peace is apt to change 
its quality if repeated !" 



'"■J. 



i 



CHAPTER V. 

AT WINCHESTER. 

Meanwhile the fateful year 1820, when I was to be 
translated from the world of Harrow, and know nothing 
more of its friendships, quarrels, and politics, was at hand. 
At the election of July in that year was to begin my 
Winchester life. I certainly looked forward to it with a 
feeling of awe approaching terror, yet not untempered by 
a sense of increased dignity and the somewhat self-com- 
placent feeling of one destined by fate to meet great and 
perilous adventures, and acquire large stores of experi- 
ence. 

The sadness of departure was tempered also, as I re- 
member, by the immediate delight of a journey to be 
performed. Certainly it was not the unmixed delight 
with which Rousseau contemplated his voyage d /aire et 
Paris au bout. Something very different lay at the end 
of my voyage. Nevertheless, so intense was my delight 
in " the road " at that time (and to a great degree ever 
since), that the sixty miles' journey to be performed was a 
great alleviation. 

The expedition was to be made with my father in his 
gig. A horse was to be sent on to Guildford, and by dint 
of starting at a very early hour, and there changing horses, 
the distance was to be performed in one day. We were 
to travel, not by the more generally used coach road by 
Hounslow and Bagshot, but over the district called the 
Hog's Back from Guildford to Farnham— chiefly, as I re- 
member, for the sake of showing me that beautiful bit of 
country. For to my father beautiful scenery was as great 
a delight as it has always been to myself. 

At Farnham there was time, while the horse was being 
baited at The Bush, for us, after snatching a morsel of 
cold meat, to visit hurriedly the park and residence of the 



AT WINCHESTER. g^ 

Bishop of Winchester. I, very contentedly trotting by 
the side of my father's long strides, was much impressed 
by the beauty of the park. But, as I remember, my mind 
was very much exercised by the fact, then first learned, 
that the bishop's diocese extended all the way to London. 
And I think that it seemed somehow to my child's mind 
that the dignity of my position as one of William of 
Wykeham's scholars was enhanced by the enormous ex- 
tent of the diocese of his successor. 

We reached Winchester late in the evening of the day 
before the election, putting up, not at The George, or at 
The White Hart, as most people would have done, but at 
the Fleur de Lys, pronounced " Flower de Luce," a very 
ancient, but then third-rate hostelry, which my father pre- 
ferred, partly probably because he thought the charges 
might be less there, but mainly because it is situated in 
the vicinity of the college, and he had known and used 
it of old. We spent the evening at the house of Dr. Ga- 
bell, the head-master, an old friend of my father's, where 
his eldest daughter, an intimate friend of my mother's, 
who had often been a visitor in Keppel Street, made much 
of me. 

And the next day I became a Wykehamist ! And the 
manner of so becoming was in this wise. The real serious 
business of the six electors — three sent from New College, 
and three belonging to Winchester, as has been set forth 
on a previous page — consisted in the examination of those 
scholars, who, standing at the top of the school, were in 
that year candidates for New College. All the eighteen 
" prefects," who formed the highest class in the school, 
were examined ; but the most serious part of the business 
was the examination of the first half-dozen or so, who 
were probably superannuated at the age of eighteen that 
year, and who might have a fair chance of finding a va- 
cancy at New College (if there were not one at that present 
moment) in the course of the ensuing twelve months. 
And this was a very fateful and serious examination, for 
the examiners in "the election chamber" would, if the ex- 
amination disclosed due cause, change the order of the 
roll as it came up to them, placing a boy who had distin- 



68 WHAT I REMEMBER, 

guished himself, before another, who had not done so. 
And as the roll thus settled was the order in which vacan- 
cies at New College were taken, the work in " the cham- 
ber " was of lifelong importance to the subjects of it. 

Very different was the "election" of the children, who 
were to go into WinchesU^r. Duly instructed as to the 
part we were to play, we went marvelling up the ancient 
stone corkscrew stair to the mysterious chamber situated 
over the "middle gate," i.e., the gateway between the 
outer court and the second quadrangle where the chapel, 
the hall, and the chambers are. The " election chamber " 
always maintained a certain character of mystery to us, 
because it was never opened or used save on the great oc- 
casion of the annual election. In that chamber we found 
the six solemn electors in their gowns waiting for us; 
especially the Bishop of Hereford, who was then Warden 
of Winchester College, an aged man who, with his peculiar 
wig and gown, was an object of awe. No bishop had in 
those days dreamed as yet of discarding the episcopal 
wig. 

And then the examination began as follows: "Well, 
boy, can you sing?" "Yes, sir." "Let us hear you." 
"*A11 people that on earth do dwell,' " responded the 
neophyte — duly instructed previously in his part of the 
proceeding — without attempting in the smallest degree to 
modify in any way his ordinary speech. "Very well, 
boy. That will do!" returned the examiner. The exam- 
ination was over, and you were a member of William of 
Wykeham's college, Sancta 3Iarice de Winton prope 
Winton. " Prope Winton," observed, for the college is 
situated outside the ancient city walls. 

The explanation of tbis survival of the simulacrum of 
an examination is that the ancient statutes require that 
candidates for admission as scholars must be competently 
instructed in piano cantu — in plain chant; the intention 
of the founder being that all his scholars should take part 
in the choral service of the chapel. 

I and my fellow-novices thus admitted as scholars in 
that July of 1820 were not about to join the school im- 
mediately. We had the six weeks holidays before us, the 



AT WINCHESTER. 69 

election taking place at the end of the summer half-year. 
Election week was the grand festival of the Wykeham- 
ical year. For three days high feast was held in the 
noble old hall. The "high table " was spread on the dais, 
and all old Wykehamists were welcome at it. The boys 
in the lower part of the hall were regaled with mutton- 
pies, and "stuckling." That was their appointed fare; 
but in point of fact they feasted on dishes or portions of 
dishes sent down from the abundantly-spread high table, 
and the pies were carried away for the next morning's 
breakfast. I do not think anybody ate much " stuckling " 
beyond a mouthinl pro jfor77id. It was a sort of flat pastry 
made of chopped apples and currants. And the specialty 
of it was that the apples must be that year's apples. 
They used to be sent up from Devonshire or Cornwall, 
and sometimes were with difficulty obtained. Then there 
was the singing of the Latin grace, with its beautiful re- 
sponses, performed by the chapel choir and as many oth- 
ers as were capable of taking part in it. The grace with 
its music has been published, and I need not occupy these 
pages with a reprint of it. And then in the afternoon 
came the singing of "Domum" on the five courts behind 
the school, by the whole strength of the company. 

Nine such election weeks did I see, counting from that 
which made me a Wykehamist in 1820 to that which saw 
me out a superannuate in 1828. I did not get a fellow- 
ship at New College, having narrowly missed it for want 
of a vacancy by one. I was much mortified at the time, 
but have seen long since that probably all was for the best 
for me. It was a mere chance, as has been shown at a 
former page, whether a boy at the head or nearly at the 
head of the school went to New College or not. 

The interesting event of a vacancy having occurred at 
New College, whether by death, marriage, or the acceptance 
of a living, was announced by the arrival of "speedyman" 
at Winchester College. " Speedyman," in conformity with 
immemorial usage, used to bring the news on foot from 
Oxford to Winchester. How well I remember the look 
of the man, as he used to arrive with all the appearance 
of having made a breathless journey, a spare, active-look- 



70 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

ing fellow, in brown cloth breeches and gaiters covered 
with dust. Of course letters telling the facts had long 
outstripped " speedyman." But with the charming and 
reverent spirit of conservatism, which in those days ruled 
all things at Winchester, " speedyman " made his jour- 
ney on foot all the same! 

Of course one of the first matters in hand when this 
fateful messenger arrived was to regale him with college 
beer, and right good beer it was in those days. In con- 
nection with it may be mentioned the rather singular fact 
that, whereas all other supplies from the college buttery 
to the boys — the bread, the cheese, the butter, the meat — 
were accurately measured, the beer was given absolutely 
ad libitum. In fact, it was not given out at all, but taken. 
Thrice a day the way to the cellar was open, a back 
stair leading from the hall to the superb old vaulted cel- 
lar, with its central pillar and arches springing from it in 
every direction. All around were the hogsheads, and the 
proper tools for tapping one as soon as another should be 
out. And to this cellar the boys — or rather the junior 
boys at each mess — went freely to draw as much as they 
chose. 

And the beer thus freely supplied was our only beverage, 
for not only was tea or coffee not furnished, it was not 
permitted. Some of the prefects (the eighteen first boys 
in college) would have "tea-messes," provided out of their 
own pocket-money, and served by their "fags." But if, 
as would sometimes happen, either of the masters chanced 
to appear on the scene before the tea-things could be got 
out of the way, he used to smash them all, using his large 
pass-key for the purpose, and saying, " What are all these 
things, sir ? William of Wykeham knew nothing, I think, 
of tea !" 

We used to breakfast at ten, after morning school, on 
bread-and-butter and beer, having got up at half-past five, 
gone to chapel at half-past six, and into school at half- 
past seven. At a quarter to one we again went up into 
hall. It was a specialty of college phraseology to sup- 
press the definite article. We always said " to hall," " to 
meads" (the playground), "to school," "to chambers," and 



AT WINCHESTER. 7I 

the like. The visit to hall at that time was properly for 
dinner, though it had long ceased to be such. The middle- 
of-the-day "hall" served in my day only for the purpose 
of luncheon (though no such modern word was ever used), 
and only those "juniors" attended whose office it was to 
bring away the portions of bread-and-cheese^ and " bobs " 
(^. e., huge jugs) of beer for consumption in the afternoon. 

Sunday formed an exception to this practice. We all 
went up into "hall" in the middle of the day on Sunday, 
and dined on roast beef, the noontide dinner consisting of 
roast beef on that day, boiled beef on Monday, Tuesday, 
Wednesday, and Thursday, and baked plum-pudding on 
Friday and Saturday. But the boiled beef, with the ex- 
ception of certain portions reserved for the next morning's 
breakfast of the seniors of the messes, or companies into 
which the "inferiors" {i.e., non-prefects) were divided, 
was not eaten, but given away. During the war Win- 
chester had been one of the depots of French prisoners, 
and the beef in question was then given to them. When 
there were no more Frenchmen it was given to twenty- 
four old women who were appointed to do the weeding 
of the college quadrangles. It must be understood that 
this arrangement was entirely spontaneous on the part of 
the boys, though it would have been quite out of the 
question for any individual to say that he, for his part, 
would eat his own beef. How all this may be now I know 
not. Probably the college, under the enlightened guid- 
ance of her majesty's commissioners, have seen the pro- 
priety of provoking the youthful Wykehamists with ta- 
ble napkins and caper sauce, while the old women go 
without their dole of beef. On the Friday and Saturday 
the pudding was carried down out of hall by the juniors 
for consumption during the afternoon. 

At about a quarter-past six, at the conclusion of after- 
noon school, we went up into hall for dinner — originally, 
of course, supper. This consisted of mutton, roast or 
boiled, every evening of the year, with potatoes and beer. 
But it was such mutton as is not to be found in English 
butchers' shops nowadays, scientific breeding having im- 
proved it from off the face of the land. It was small 



72 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

Southdown mutton, uncrossed by any of the coarser, 
rapidly -growing, and fat-niaking breeds. And that it 
should be such was insured by the curious rule that, 
though only a given number of pounds of mutton were 
required and paid for to the contractor, the daily supply 
was always to be one sheep and a half. So that if large 
mutton*was sent it was to the loss of the contractor. 

Furthermore it was the duty of the "prefect of tub" 
to see that the mutton was in all ways satisfactory. The 
" prefect of tub " was one of the five boys at the head of 
the school; another was the "prefect of hall;" a third 
"prefect of school," and the fourth and fifth "prefects 
of chapel." These offices were all positions of emolument. 
That of the " prefect of tub " was far the most so, and was 
usually held by the senior college " founder," or boy of 
" founder's kin," during his last year before going to New 
College. The titles of the other ofiices explain themselves, 
but that of " prefect of tub " requires some elucidation. 

In the hall, placed just inside the screen which divided 
the buttery hatches from the body of the hall, there was 
an ancient covered " tub." In the course of my eight 
years' stay at Winchester this venerable tub — damnosa 
quid non diminuit dies? — had to be renewed. It was re- 
placed by a much handsomer one; but, as I remember, 
the change had rather the effect on the popular mind in 
college of diminishing our confidence in the permanency 
of human institutions generally. The original purpose 
of this tub was to receive fragments and remains of food, 
together with such portions — " dispers " we called them 
— of the evening mutton supper as were not duly claimed 
by the destined recipient of them at his place at the table, 
that they might be given to the poor; and the "prefect 
of tub " was so called because it was part of his office to 
see that this was duly done. It was also his duty to pre- 
side over the distribution of the aforesaid " dispers " — not 
quasi dispai's, as might be supposed by those who can ap- 
preciate the difference between a prime cut out of a leg 
of mutton and a bit of the breast of a sheep, but " dlsjoers " 
from dispertio. Now the distribution in question was 
effected in this wise. The joints were cut up in the 



AT WINCHESTER. 73 

kitchen always accuratelj^ in the same manner. The leg 
made eight " clispers," the shoulder seven, and so on. The 
"dispers" thus prepared were put into four immense 
pewter dishes, and these were carried up into hall by four 
choristers under the superintendence of the "prefect of 
tub" and distributed among the fifty-two "inferiors"— 
i, 6., non-prefects. The eighteen prefects dined at two 
tables by themselves. Their joints were not cut into 
" dispers," but were dressed by the cook according to 
their own orders, paid for by themselves according to an 
established tariff drawn with reference to the extra ex- 
pense of the mode of preparation ordered. The long, nar- 
row tables were six in number, ranged on either side of 
the noble hall, exactly as in a monastic refectory. The 
dais was left unoccupied, save at election time, when the 
"hi^h table" was spread there. At the first two tables 
on the left-hand side as one entered the hall, the eighteen 
prefects dined. 

This bloated aristocracy was supplied with plates to 
eat their dinner from. The populace — mere mutton con- 
sumere nati—thQ fifty-two inferiors, had only " trenchers," 
flat pieces of wood about nine inches square. These fifty- 
two " inferiors " were divided into eight companies, and oc- 
cupied the remaining four tables. But this division was 
so arranged that one of the eight seniors of the " inferiors " 
was at the head of each company, and one of the eight 
juniors at the bottom of each, the whole body being sim- 
ilarly distributed. And each of these companies occupied 
a different table every day, the party who sat at the low- 
est table on Monday occupying the highest on Tuesday, 
and so on. So that when the " prefect of tub " entered 
the hall at the head of the procession of four choristers, 
carrying the four " gomers " (such was the phrase) of dis- 
pers, he proceeded first to the table on the opposite side 
of the hall to that of the prefects, and saw that the senior 
of the mess occupying that table selected as many of the 
most eligible dispers as there were persons present. If 
any junior were absent by authority of, or on the business 
of, any prefect, his disper was allowed to be taken for 
him. This senior of the mess, it may be mentioned oUter, 
4 



74 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

was called, for some reason hidden in the obscurity of 
time, the " candlekeeper." Assuredly neither he nor his 
office had any known connection with the keeping of 
candles. Any dispers remaining unclaimed at the end of 
his tour of the hall belonged to " the tub." 

In return for the performance of this important office, 
the ^' prefect of tub " was entitled to the heads, feet, and 
all such portions of the sheep as were not comprised in 
legs, shoulders, necks, loins, and breasts, as well as to the 
dispers of any individuals who might from any cause be 
absent from college. Of course he did not meddle per- 
sonally with any of these perquisites, but had a contract 
with the college manciple, the value of which was, I be- 
lieve, about £80 a year. Such was the " prefect of tub." 

Orderly conduct in hall generally, which did not imply 
any degree of violence, was maintained by the " prefect 
of hall," the dignity of whose office, though it was by no 
means so profitable as that of the " prefect of tub," ranked 
above that of all the other "officers." No master was 
ever present in hall. 

But the most onerous and important duty of the pre- 
fect of hall consisted in superintending the excursion to 
" hills," — i. e., to St. Catherine's Hill, which took place 
twice on every holiday, once on every half -holiday dur- 
ing the year, and every evening during the summer 
months. On these occasions the " prefect of hall " had 
under his guidance and authority not only William of 
Wykeham's seventy scholars, but the whole of the hun- 
dred and thirty pupils of the head-master, who were called 
commoners. The scholars marched first, two and two 
(with the exception of the prefects, who walked as they 
pleased), and then followed the commoners. And it was 
the duty of the prefect of hall to keep the column in good 
and compact order until the top of the hill was reached. 
Then all dispersed to amuse themselves as they pleased. 
But the prefect of hall still remained responsible for his 
flock keeping within bounds. 

St. Catherine's Hill is a notably isolated down in the 
immediate neighborhood of Winchester, and just above 
the charming little village of St. Cross. There is a clump 



AT WINCHESTER. 75 

of firs on the top, and the imusiially well-marked circum- 
vallation of a Roman (or British ?) camp around the circle 
of the hill. The ditch of this circumvallation formed 
our " bounds." The straying beyond them, however, in 
the direction of the open downs away from the city, and 
from St. Cross, was deemed a very venial oifence by either 
the prefect of hall or the masters. But not so in the 
direction of the town. It was the duty of the three 
" juniors " in college — one of whom I was during my first 
half-year — to "call domum.'''' When the time came for 
returning to college, one of those three walked over the 
top of the hill from one side to the other, while the other 
two went round the circumvallation — each one half of it 
— calling perpetually ^' Domum . . . domum'''' as loudly as 
they could. All the year round we went to "morning 
hills " before breakfast, and to afternoon hills about three. 
In the summer we went, as I have said, every evening 
after "hall," but not to the top of the hill, only to the 
water-meads at the foot of it, the object being to bathe in 
the Itchen. 

Many of the Winchester recollections most indelibly, 
fixed in my memory are connected with " hills." It seems 
impossible that sixty years can have passed since I stood 
on the bank of the circumvallation facing towards Win- 
chester, and gazed down on the white morning mist that 
entirely concealed the city and valley. How many morn- 
ings in the late autumn have I stood and watched the 
moving, but scarcely moving, masses of billowy white 
cloud! And what strange similitudes and contrasts sug- 
gested themselves to my mind as I recently looked down 
from the heights of Monte Gennaro on the Roman Cam- 
pagna similarly cloud hidden! The phenomenon exhibited 
itself on an inifinitely larger scale in the latter case, but it 
did not suggest to me such thick-coming fancies and fan- 
tastic imaginings as the water-mead-born mists of the 
Itchen! 

There were two special amusements connected with our 
excursions to St. Catherine's Hill — badger-baiting and 
" mouse-digging," the former patronized mainly by the 
bigger fellows, the latter by their juniors. There was a 



76 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

man in the town, a not very reputable fellow I fancy, 
who had constituted himself "badger -keeper" to the 
college. It was his business to provide a badger and 
dogs, and to bring them to certain appointed trysting- 
places at " hill times " for the sport. The i^laces in ques- 
tion were not within our "bounds," but at no great dis- 
tance in some combe or chalk-pit of the neighboring 
downs. Of course it was not permitted by the authorities; 
but I think it might easily have been prevented had any 
attempt to do so been made in earnest. It seems strange, 
considering my eight years' residence in college, that I 
never once was present at a badger-baiting. I am afraid 
that my absence was not caused by distinct disapproval 
of the cruelty of the sport, but simply by the fact that my 
favorite " hill-times " occupations took me in other direc- 
tions. 

Nor, probably for the same reason, vv^as I a great mouse- 
digger. Very many of us never went to "hills" unarmed 
with a "mouse-digger." This was a sort of miniature 
pickaxe, which was used to dig the field-mice out of their 
holes. The skill and the amusement consisted in follow- 
ing the labyrinthine windings of these, which are exceed- 
ingly numerous on the chalk downs, in such sort as to cap- 
ture the inmate and her brood without injuring her, and 
carry her home in triumph to be kept in cages provided 
ad hoc. 

There was — and doubtless is — a clump of firs on the 
very centre and summit of St. Catherine's Hill. They are 
very tall and spindly trees, with not a branch until the tuft 
at the top is reached. And my great delight when I was 
in my first or second year was to climb these. Of course I 
was fond of doing what few, if any, of my compeers could 
do as well. And this was the case as regarded " swarm- 
ing up" thos(# tall and slippery stems. I could reach the 
topmost top, and gloried much in doing so. 

But during my later years the occupation of a hill morn- 
ing which most commended itself to me was ranging as 
widely as possible over the neighboring hills. Like the 
fox in the old song, I was " off to the downs O !" As I 
have said, the straying beyond bounds in this direction, 



AT WINCHESTER. /^7 

away from the town, was considered a very light offence; 
but I was apt to make it a somewhat more serious one by 
not getting back from my rambling, despite good running, 
till it was too late to return duly with the main body to 
college. It was very probable that this might pass with- 
out detection, if there were no roll-call on the way back. 
But it frequently happened that " Gaffer " (such was Dr. 
Williams's sobriquet among us) on his white horse met us 
on our homeward march, and stopped the column, while 
the prefect of hall called names. As these escapades in 
my case occurred mainly during my last three years, I, be- 
ing a prefect myself, owed no allegiance to the authority 
of the prefect of hall; but the roll-call revealing my ab- 
sence would probably issue in my having to learn by heart 
one of the epistles of Horace. Prefects learned their " im- 
positions" by heart, "inferiors" wrote them. 

Every here and there the sides of these downs are 
scored by large chalk-pits. There is a very large one on 
St. Catherine's Hill on the side looking towards St. Cross; 
and this was a favorite scene of exploits in which I may 
boast myself ('tis sixty years since !) to have been un- 
rivalled. There was a very steep and rugged path by 
which it was possible to descend from the upper edge of 
this chalk-pit to the bottom of it. And it was a feat, in 
w^hich I confess I took some pride, to take a fellow on my 
shoulders (not on my back), while he had a smaller boy 
on his shoulders, and thus with two living stories on my 
shoulders to descend the difficult path in question. And 
the boy in the middle — the first story — could not be a very 
small one, for it was requisite that he also should hold and 
balance his burden thoroughly well. I think I could carry 
one very little boy down now ! 

It was the " prefect of hall " who managed the whole 
business of our holidays — as they would be called else- 
where — which we called " remedies." A " holiday " meant 
at Winchester a red-letter day; and was duly kept as such. 
But if no such day occurred in the week, the " prefect of 
hall" went on the Tuesday morning to the head-master 
(Wiccamice ^^ informator^^) and asked for a "remedy," 
which, unless there were any reason, such as very bad 



78 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

weather, or a holiday coming later in the Aveek, was granted 
by handing to the prefect a ring, which remained in his 
keeping till the following morning. This symbol was in- 
scribed " Commendat rarior usus." 

But in addition to these imjDortant duties the " prefect 
of hall" discharged another, of which J. must say a few 
words, with reference to the considerable amount of in- 
terest which the outside world was good enough to take 
in the subject a few years ago, with all that accurate 
knowledge of facts, and that discrimination which people 
usually display when talking of what they know nothing 
about. 

It was the " prefect of hall " who ordered the infliction 
of a " public tunding." The strange phrase, dropped by 
some unlucky chance into ears to which it conveyed no 
definite meaning, seems to have inspired vague terrors of 
the most terrific kind. Very much nonsense was talked 
and printed at the time I refer to. But the following sim- 
ple and truthful statement of what a public tunding was, 
may enable those who take an interest in the matter to 
form some reasonable opinion whether the infliction of 
such punishment were a good or a bad thing. 

At the conclusion of the evening dinner or supper, 
whichever it may be called, the "prefect of hall" sum- 
moned the boys to the dais for the singing of grace. 
Some dozen or so of boys, who had the best capacities for 
the performance, were appointed by him for the purpose, 
and the whole assembly stood around the dais, while the 
hymn " 2''e de Profundis " was sung. When all were thus 
assembled, and before the singers commenced, the culprit 
who had been sentenced to a tunding stepped out, pulled 
off his gown, and received from the hands of one deputed 
by the "prefect of hall," and armed with a tough, pliant 
ground-ash stick, a severe beating. I never had a tund- 
ing; but I have no doubt that the punishment was severe, 
though I never heard of any boy disabled by it from pur- 
suing his usual work or his usual amusements. It was 
judiciously ordered by the " prefect of hall " for offences 
deemed unbecoming the character of a Wykehamist and 
a gentleman, and only for such. Any such petty larceny 



AT WINCHESTER, /^g 

exploits as the scholars at some other " seats of learning " 
are popularly said to be not nnfreqnently guilty of, such 
as robberies of orchards or poultry -yards or the like, would 
have inevitably entailed a public tunding. Any attempt 
whatsoever to appropriate unduly, either by fraud or vio- 
lence, anything sent to another boy from home — any por- 
tion of a " cargo," as such despatches were called — and d 
fortiori any money or money's value, would have neces- 
sitated a public tunding. The infliction was rare. Many 
half-years passed without any public tunding having been 
administered. And my own impression is that the prac- 
tice was eminently calculated to foster among us a high 
tone of moral and gentlemanlike feeling. 

These reminiscences of the penal code that was in vigor 
among ourselves are naturally connected with those refer- 
ring to the subject of corporal punishment in its more offi- 
cial form. 

On one of the whitewashed walls of the huge school- 
room was an inscription conceived and illustrated as fol- 
lows: '■^ Aiit disceP'' and there followed a depicted book 
and inkstand; ^^ Ant discedeV followed by a handsomely 
painted sword, as who should say, " Go and be a soldier !" 
(offering that as an alternative for which no learning was 
needed, after the fashion of a day before examinations for 
commissions were dreamed of !) ; and then, lastly, '■'■Manet 
sors tertia ccedi^'' followed by the portraiture of a rod. 

But this rod is of so special and peculiar a kind, and so 
dissimilar from any such instrument as used elsewhere, 
that I must try to explain the nature of it to my non- 
Wiccamical readers. A stick of some hard wood, beech 
I think it was, turned into a shape convenient to the hand, 
about a yard long, and with four grooves about three 
inches long and as large as a cedar pencil, cut in the ex- 
tremity of it, formed the handle. Into these four grooves 
were fitted four slender apple twigs about five feet long. 
They were sent up from Herefordshire in bundles, cut and 
prepared for the purpose, and it was the duty of the "pre- 
fect of school" to provide them. These twigs, fitted into 
the grooves, were fixed by a string which bound them 
tightly to the handle, and a rod was thus formed, the four- 



80 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

fold switches of which stood out some foot — or more than 
that towards the end — from each other. 

The words "flog" or "flogging," it is to be observed, 
were never heard attiong us, in the mouth either of the 
masters or of the boys. We were " scourged." And a 
scourging was administered in this wise. At a certain 
spot in the school— near the seat of the '' informator'" 
when he was the executioner, and near that of the ^' hosti- 
arius''^ or under-master when he had to perform — in front 
of a fixed form, the patient knelt down. Two boys, any 
who chanced to be at hand, stepped behind the form, 
turned the gown of a collegian or the coat-tails of a com- 
moner over his shoulders, and unbuttoned his brace but- 
tons, leaving bare at the part where the braces join the 
trousers a space equal to the diameter of a crown-piece — 
such was the traditional inile. And aiming at this with 
more or less exactitude the master inflicted three cuts. 
Such was a " scourging." 

Prefects, it may be observed, were never scourged. 

The *' best possible instructors " of this enlightened age, 
who never treat of subjects the facts of which they are not 
conversant with, have said much of the " cruelty " and the 
" indecency " of such infliction of corporal punishment, and 
of the moral degradation necessarily entailed on the suf- 
ferers of it. As to the cruelty, it will be readily under- 
stood from the above description of the rod, that it was 
quite as likely as not that no one of the four twigs, at 
either of the three cuts, touched the narrow, bare part; 
especially as the operator — proceeding from one patient to 
another with the utmost possible despatch, and with his 
eyes probably on the list in his left hand of the culj^rits to 
be operated on — had little leisure or care for aiming. The 
fact simply was that the pain was really not worth speak- 
ing of, and that nobody cared the least about it. 

The affair passed somewhat in this wise. It is ten 
o'clock; the morning school is over; and we are all in a 
hurry to get out to breakfast. There are probably about 
a dozen or a score of boys to be scourged. Dr. Williams, 
as well beloved a master as ever presided over any school 
in the world, has come down from his seat, elevated three 



AT WINCHESTER. 81 

steps above the floor of the school, putting on his great 
cocked hat as he does so. He steps to the form where the 
scourging is to be done; the list of those to be scourged, 
■with the reasons why, is handed to him by the prefect, 
charged for the week with this duty, together with the 
rod. He calls " Jones " — swish, swish, swish ! — " Brown " 
— swish, swish, swish I — " Robinson "—swish, swish, swish ! 
as rapidly as it can be done. Each operation takes per- 
haps twenty seconds. Having got through the list, he 
flings the rod on the ground, makes a demi-volte so as to 
face the whole school, taking off his hat as he does so, rnd 
the "prefect of school" who has been waiting on the steps 
of the master's seat, vrith the prayer-book open in his 
hand, instantly reads the short prayer with which the 
school concludes, while those who have been scourged 
stand in the background hurriedly readjusting their brace 
buttons so as not to be behindhand at the buttery hatch 
for breakfast. Of any disgrace attached to the reception 
of a scourging, no one had any smallest conception. 

Of the cruelty of the infliction the reader may judge for 
himself. Of the indecent talk about indecency he may 
also know from the above accurate account what to think. 
The degree of " moral degradation " inflicted on the suffer- 
ers may perhaps be estimated by a reference to the roll of 
those whom Winchester has supplied to serve their coun- 
try in Church and State. 

The real and unanswerable objection to the infliction of 
" corporal punishment," as it was used in my day at Win- 
chester, was that it was a mere form and farce. It caused 
neither pain nor disgrace, and assuredly morally degraded 
nobody. I have been scourged five times in the day; not 
because, as might be supposed, I was so incorrigible that 
the master found it necessary to go on scourging me, but 
simply because it so chanced. I had, say, come into chapel 
'•^arcZe," i. e., after the service had commenced; I had omit- 
ted to send in duly my " culgus f I had been " floored" in 
my Horace; I had missed duly answering " sum," when on 
returning from "hills" "Gaffer" had met the procession 
on his gray horse and caused the "prefect of hall" "to 
call names," the reason being that I had been far away 
4* 



82 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

over the downs to Twyford, and bad not been able to run 
back in time; and an unlucky simultaneousness of these or 
of a dozen other such sins of omission or commission had 
occurred, which had to be wiped off by a scourging by the 
^' hostiarius''^ at the morning school, and another by the 
^^ informator ;^^ by a third from the former at ''middle 
school," when the head-master did not attend; by a fourth 
from the " hostiarius " at evening school, and a fifth from 
the '■Hnformator'''' the last thing before going out to din- 
ner at six. But this was a rare tour deforce, scarcely like- 
ly to occur again. I was rather proud of it, and wholly 
unconscious of any " moral degradation." 

I have spoken of the '■^ informator'''' putting on his 
cocked hat when about to commence his work of scourg- 
ing. I am at a loss to account for his having worn this 
very unacademical costume. It was a huge three-cornered 
cocked hat very much like that of a coachman on state 
occasions; and must, I take it, have been a survival from 
about the time of Charles the Second. It has, I believe, 
been since discarded. 

The mention above of a " viilgus " requires some expla- 
nation. Every " inferior," i. e., non-prefect, in the school 
was required every night to produce a copy of verses of 
from two to six lines on a given theme; four or six lines 
for the upper classes, two for the lowest. This was inde- 
pendent of a weekly " verse task " of greater lengtli, and 
was called a " vulgus,'''' I suppose, because everybody — the 
vidgiis — had to do it. The prefects were exercised in the 
same manner but with a difference. Immediately before 
going out from morning or from evening school, at the 
conclusion of the day's lesson, the " informator " would 
give a theme, and each boy was expected then and there, 
without the assistance of pen, paper, or any book, to com- 
pose a couple, or two couple, of lines, and give them mvd 
voce. He got up, and scraped with his foot to call the 
master's attention when he was ready; and as not above 
five or ten minutes were available for the business, a con- 
siderable degree of promptitude was requisite. The 
theory was that these compositions — "varying" was the 
term in the case of the prefects, as " vulgus " in that of 



AT WINCHESTER. 83 

the inferiors — should be epigrammatic in their nature, and 
that Martial rather than Ovid should be the model. Of 
course but little of an epigrammatic nature was for the 
most part achieved; but great readiness was made habit- 
ual by the practice. And sometimes the result was credit- 
able to something more than readiness. 

I am tempted to give one instance of such a "varjdng." 
It belonged to an earlier time than mine — the time when 
Decus et tutameii was adopted as the motto cut on the rim 
of the five-shilling pieces. The author of the " varying " 
in question had been ill with fever, and his head had been 
shaved, causing him to wear a wig. Decus et tutamen was 
the theme given. In a minute or two he was ready, stood 
up, and, taking off his wig, said, '■^Aspicite hos crines! du- 
plicem servantur in usum ! Hi mihi tutamen nocte " — put- 
ting the wig on wrong side outwards ; " Dieque decus,^^ 
reversing it as he spoke the words. The memory of this 
"varying" lives — or lived — at Winchester. But I do 
not think it has ever been published, and really it deserves 
preservation. I wish I could give the author's name. 

When at the end of the summer holidays in that year, 
1820, I returned to college, again brought down to Win- 
chester by my father in his gig, I confess to having felt 
for some short time a very desolate little waif. As I, at 
the time a child barely out of the nursery, look back upon 
it, it seems to my recollection that the strongest sense of 
being shoved off from shore without guidance, help, or 
protection, arose from never seeing or speaking to a female 
human being. To be sure there was at the sick-house the 
presiding " mother " — Gumbrell her name was, usually 
pronounced "Grumble" — but she was not a fascinating 
representative of the sex. An aged woman once nearly 
six feet high, then much bent by rheumatism, rather grim 
and somewhat stern, she very conscientiously administered 
the prescribed "black-dose and calomel pill" to those un- 
der her care at the sick-house. To be there was called 
being "continent;" to leave it was "going abroad" — in- 
telligibly enough. Tea was provided there for those 
" continent " instead of the usual breakfast of bread-and- 
butter and beer ; and I remember overhearing Mother 



84 WHAT I KEMEMBER. 

Gumbrell, oppressed by an unusual number of inmates, 
say, " Talk of Job, indeed ! Job never had to cut crusty 
loaves into bread-and-butter !" 

I saw the old woman die! I was by chance in the sick- 
house kitchen — in after-years, when a prefect — and " Dicky 
Gumbrell," the old woman's husband, who had been butler 
to Dean Ogle, and w^ho by special and exceptional favor 
was allowed to live with his wife in the sick-house, was 
reading to her the story of Joseph and his Brethren, while 
she was knitting a stocking, and sipping occasionally from 
a jug of college beer which stood between them, when 
quite suddenly her hands fell on to her lap and her head on 
to her bosom, and she was dead ! while poor old Dicky 
quite unconsciously went on with his reading. 

But I mentioned Mother Gumbrell only to observe that 
she, the only petticoated creature whom we ever saw or 
spoke with, was scarcely calculated to supply, even to the 
imagination, the feminine element which had till then 
made so large a part of the lives of ten-year-old children 
fresh from their mother's knee. 

Perhaps the most markedly distinctive feature of the 
school lite was the degree in which w^e were uninterfered 
with by any personal superintendence. The two masters 
came into the schoolroom to hear the different classes at the 
hours which have been mentioned, also when we were *' in 
chambers " in the evening, either during the hour of study 
which intervened between the six-o'clock dinner and the 
eight-o'clock prayers in the chapel, or during the subsequent 
hour between that and nine o'clock, when all went, or ought 
to have gone, to bed; and subsequently to that, wt en all 
were supposed to be in bed and asleep, we were at any mo- 
ment liable to the sudden, unannounced visit of the " hosti- 
arius^'' or second master. The visit was a mere "going 
round." If all was in order, it passed in silence, and was all 
over in a minute. If any tea-things were surprised, they 
were broken, as before mentioned. If beer, or traces of the 
consumption of beer, were apparent, that was all right. The 
supply of a provision of that refreshment was recognized, it 
being a part of the duty of the bedmakers to carry every 
evening into each of the seven " chambers " a huge " nip- 



AT WINCHESTER. 85 

perkin " of beer, " to last," as I remember one of the bed- 
makers telling me when I first went into college, "for all 
night." The supply, as far as my recollection goes, was 
always considerably in excess of the consumption. If all 
was not in order, " the prefect in course " — i. e., the prefect 
who in each chamber was responsible for due order during 
the current week — was briefly told to speak with the mas- 
ter next morning. And this comprises about all the per- 
sonal intercourse that took place between us and the 
masters. 

Not that it is to be understood that any hour of our 
lives was left to our own discretion as to the employment 
of it; but this was attained by no immediate personal 
superintendence or direction. The systematized routine 
was so perfect, and so similar in its operation to the move- 
ments of some huge, irresistible machine, that the disposal 
of each one of our hours seemed to be as natural, as neces- 
sary, and as inevitable as the waxing and waning of the 
moon. And the impression left on my mind by eight 
years' experience of such a system is, that it was pre-emi- 
nently calculated to engender and foster habitual concep- 
tions of the paramount authority of laio, as distinguished 
from the dictates of personal notions or caprices; of self- 
reliance, and of conscious responsibility in the individual 
as forming a unit in an organized whole. Of course the 
eighteen prefects were to a much smaller degree coerced 
by the machine, and to a very great degree active agents 
in the working of it. And I was a prefect during three 
years of my eight in college. But at first, when a little 
fellow of, say, ten years old entered this new world, it 
was not without a desolate sensation of abandonment, 
which it needed a month or two's experience to get the 
better of. 

All this, however, was largely corrected and modified 
by one admirable institution, which was a cardinal point 
in the Wiccamical system. To every " inferior " was ap- 
pointed one of the prefects as a "tutor." It was the duty 
of this tutor to superintend and see to the learning of his 
lessons by the inferior, and the due performance of his 
written " prose " and " verse tasks," to protect him against 



80 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

all ill-usage or " bullying," and to be in all ways his prov- 
idence and friend. These appointments were made by 
the " informator.'''' The three or four senior prefects 
had as many as seven pupils, the junior prefects one or 
two only; and the tutor received from the parents of 
each pupil, by the hands of the master, two guineas 
yearly. 

In order rightly to understand the working of all these 
arrangements, it must be explained that each individual's 
place in " the school " and his place " in college " were two 
entirely different things. The first depended on his ac- 
quirements when he entered the college and his subse- 
quent scholastic progress. The latter depended solely on 
his seniority " in college." The junior in college was the 
last boy whose nomination succeeded in finding a vacancy 
in any given year; and he remained "junior" till the ad- 
mission of another boy next year, when he had one junior 
below him, and so on. Thus it might happen, and con- 
stantly did happen, that a boy's junior in college might be 
much above him in the school, either from having come 
in at a later age, or from being a better-prepared or clev- 
erer boy. And all the arrangements of the domestic col- 
lege life, the fagging, etc., depended wholly on juniority 
" in college," and had no reference to the place held by 
each in the school. But all this seniority and juniority 
" in college " ceased to operate in any way as soon as the 
individual in question became a prefect. He had then 
equal authority over every " inferior," whether such infe- 
rior were his senior or junior in college. 

It is evident, therefore, that the prefect's authority 
was frequently exercised over individuals older, bigger, 
stronger than himself; and for the due and regular work- 
ing of this system it was necessary that the authority of 
the prefect should be absolute and irresistible. It was 
traditionally supposed in college that for an " inferior " to 
raise his hand against a prefect would be a case of expul- 
sion. Whether expulsion would have actually followed, I 
cannot say, for during my eight years' residence in col- 
lege I never remember such a case to have occurred. I 
have heard my father and other old Wykehamists of his 



AT WINCHESTER. 87 

day declare that no such absolute authority as that of a 
prefect at Winchester existed in England, save in the case 
of the captain of a man-of-war. It should be observed, 
however, in modification of this, that any. abuse of this 
authority in the way of bullying or cruelty would at once 
have been interfered with by that other prefect, the vic- 
tim's tutor. An appeal to the master would have been 
about as much thought of as an appeal to Jupiter or 
Mars. 



CHAPTER VI. 

AT WINCHESTER — (continuecT) . 

When I went into college in 1820, at ten years old, Dr. 
Gabell was the '•^ informator^'' 2.y^^ Mr. (afterwards Dr.) 
Williams the " hostiarms^'' or second master. When I 
quitted it in 1828, Dr. Williams was head-master, and Mr. 
Ridding second master. I do not know that Gabell was 
altogether an unpopular man, but he never inspired that 
strong affection that his successor did. His manner was 
disagreeable. In short, he was not so completely a gen- 
tleman as Williams was. 

I am tempted to give here an anecdote that was current- 
ly told of Gabell — though I cannot say that it occurred 
within my knowledge — because it is at all events a very 
characteristic one. 

Some boy or other — he was, I fancy, a " commoner," or 
one of Dr. Gabell's private pupils — was guilty of some 
small delinquency which had the unfortunate effect of es- 
pecially angering the Doctor, who, in his rage, without giv- 
ing a second thought to the matter, wrote off a hurried 
letter to the boy's father, telling him that if his son con- 
tinued his present conduct he was on the high-road to ruin. 

Unfortunately the parent lived in one of the far north- 
ern counties. In extreme distress he at once left home 
and posted to Winchester. 

Rushing, in agitation and anxiety, into Gabell's study, 
he gasped out, " What is it ? Tell it me at once ! What 
has my unhappy boy done ?" 

" What boy ?" snorted Gabell. " What do you mean ? 
I don't know what you are talking about!" 

The father, much relieved, but more amazed, pulls out 
the terrible letter which had summoned him, and puts it 
before the much crestfallen " informatorr 

"I had forgotten all about it !" he was compelled to 



AT WINCHESTER. 89 

own. " The boy is a good boy enough. You had better 
go and talk to him yourself, and — and tell him not to miss 
answering his name again !" The parent's feelings and 
his expression of them may be imagined. 

It used to be said, I remember, that of the two masters 
of Winchester, one snored without sleeping (Gabell), and 
the other slept without snoring. Gabell was, in truth, al- 
ways snorting or snoring (so to call it) ; but the accusa- 
tion against Williams of sleeping was, I think, justified 
only by his peculiarly placid and quiet manner. He Avas 
a remarkably handsome man; and his sobriquet, among 
those of the previous generation rather than among us 
boys, was, " The Beauty of Holiness " — again with refer- 
ence to the unruffled repose of his manner. We boys in- 
variably called him " Gaffer." Why, I know not. 

Gabell, I think, had no nickname; but there was a phrase 
among us, as common as any liousehold word, w^hich was 
in some degree characteristic of the man. Any conduct 
which was supposed likely to turn out eventually to the 
detriment of the actor was called "spiting Gabell;" and 
the expression was continually used when the speaker in- 
tended no more reference to Dr. Gabell than a man who 
orders a spencer has to the first wearer of that garment. 

Mr. Ridding was not a popular master, though I do not 
know that he had any worse fault than a bad manner. It 
was a jaunty, jerky, snappish manner, totally devoid of 
personal dignity. It was said that in school he was not 
impartial. But by the time he became second master, on 
the retirement of Gabell, I had reached that part of the 
school which was under the head-master, and have no per- 
sonal knowledge of the matter. I do not think any boy 
would have gone to Ridding in any private trouble or 
difficulty. There was not one who would not have gone 
to Williams as to a father. 

But in my reminiscences of the college authorities I must 
not omit the first and greatest of all — the warden. Hun- 
tingford. Bishop of Hereford, was warden during the 
whole of my college career. He was an aged man, and 
somewhat of a valetudinarian. And to the imagination 
of us boys, Avho rarely saw him, he assumed something of 



90 WHAT I KEMEMBER. 

the mystic, awe-inspiring character of a '' veiled prophet 
of Khorassan." The most awful threat that could be ful- 
minated against any boy was that he should be had up be- 
fore the warden. I do not remember that any boy ever 
was. He alone could expel a boy; and he alone could 
give leave out from college; as was testified by the ap- 
pearance every Sunday of a great folio sheet, on which 
were inscribed, in his own peculiar great square charac- 
ters, each letter standing by itself, the names of those who 
had been invited by friends to dine in the town, and who 
were thereby permitted to go out from, I think, one to five. 
To go out of the college gates without that permission was 
expulsion. But it was a crime never committed. There 
were traditional stories of scaling of walls, but I remember 
no case of the kind. 

There was one occasion on which every boy had an in- 
terview with the Avarden — that of taking before him the 
" college oath," which took place when we were, as I re- 
member, fourteen. On a certain day in every year the 
"prefect of hall " made inquiry for all of that age who had 
not taken the oath, and required them to copy a sheet of 
writing handed to them. I cannot remember the words in 
which the oath was couched," but the main provisions of it 
were to the effect that you would never by word or deed 
do aught to injure the college or its revenues; that you 
would be obedient to the authorities; and that you would 
never in any way by word or deed look down on any 
scholar of the college, the social position of whose family 
might be inferior to your own. And I remember that there 
was appended to the oath the story of a certain captain 
in Cromwell's forces, who, when the Parliament troopers 
were about to invade, and probably sack, the college, so 
exercised his authority as to prevent that misfortune, be- 
ing influenced thereto by the remembrance of his college 
oath. Before swearing, which we did with much awe, we 
had to read over the oath. And I well remember that if 
a boy in reading pronounced the Avord " revenue " with 
the accent on the first syllable (as it was already at that 
time the usual mode to do), the warden invariably cor- 
rected him with, " Revenue, boy !" It was, I suppose, an 



AT WINCHESTER. 91 

exemplification of the dictum "No innovation," which 
(with the "a" pronounced as in "father") was said to be 
continually the rule of his conduct. 

Probably it did not occur to him that the Herefordshire 
people might have considered it an innovation that Here- 
fordshire candidates for orders should be obliged to come 
to be ordained in Winchester College Chapel, as was the 
case, instead of finding their bishop in his own cathedral 
church ! 

Bishop Huntingford was a notable Grecian, and had pub- 
lished a rudimentary book of Greek exercises, which was at 
one time largely used. I take it he was not in any larger 
sense a profound scholar. But I remember a story which 
v/as illustrative of his grammatical accuracy^ The Dean 
of Winchester, Dr. Rennell, was an enthusiastic Platonist, 
and upon one occasion, in conversation with the warden 
and others, quoted a passage from Plato, in which the ad- 
jective "Trarrwr" occurred. Upon which the bishop 
promptly denied that any such words were to be found in 
Plato. The controversy was said to have been remitted 
to the arbitrament of a wager of a dinner and dozen of 
port, when the warden, who in fact knew nothing of the 
passage quoted, but knew that the dean had said "7ravrw»/" 
in the masculine, when the substantive with which it was 
made to agree required the feminine, said, "No! no! 
Traarwy, Mr. Dean, Trao-wv !" and so won his wager. 

The warden's nickname, borne among sundry genera- 
tions of Wykehamists, was Tupto (rvTrrw), as we always 
supposed from that Greek verb used as the example In the 
Greek grammar. But I have heard from those of an 
earlier generation that it was quasi dicas " tiptoe," from 
the fact of his father having been a dancing-master. The 
former derivation seems to me the more plausible. 

" Tupto " very rarely came to college chapel, and when 
he did so in his episcopal wig and lawn sleeves it was 
felt by us that his presence gave a very marked addition- 
al solemnity to the occasion. Though assuredly far from 
being a model bishop according to the estimate of these 
latter days, I believe him to have been a very good man. 
He lived and died a bachelor, having at a very early period 



92 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

of his life undertaken the support of a brother's widow 
and family, who had been left unprovided for. And it 
was reported among Wykehamists of an earlier genera- 
tion than mine that never was husband so severely ruled 
by a wife as the bishop was by his sister-in-law. "Peace 
to his manes," as old Cramer, the pianist, used to say, al- 
ways pronouncing it monosyllabically, "mains"! His 
rule of Winchester College was a long and prosperous one ; 
and as long as it lasted he was able to carry out his fa- 
vorite maxim, " No innovation !" 

But when old Tupto went over to the majority the spir- 
it of innovation, so long repressed, began to exert itself 
in many directions. I am told, for instance, that it has 
been found ^o much for young Wykehamists of the pres- 
ent generation to wait for their breakfasts till ten in the 
morning, and that the excursion to "morning hills" be- 
fore breakfast is declared to be too much for their strength. 
Well, I wish it may answer, as Sterne's Uncle Toby said. 
But I do not think that the college, during the latter years 
of our century, can show better bills of health than it did 
in its earlier decades. 

The dormitory arrangements are much changed, I be- 
lieve, and it may be worth while to record a few reminis- 
cences of what they were in my day. 

The second or inner quadrangle of the college buildings 
was formed by the chapel and hall and kitchen on one side, 
and on the other three by the lodgings of the fellows and 
the ^' hostiariiis^^ on the first floor, and the "chambers" 
of the scholars on the ground-floor. These chambers were 
seven in number. They contained, therefore, on an aver- 
age, ten beds each. But they were by no means equal in 
size. The largest, "seventh" (for they were all known 
by their numbers), held thirteen beds; the smallest," fifth," 
only eight. A few years before my time that side of the 
quadrangle under which were situated the "first" and 
" second " chambers was burned. And the beds and oth- 
er arrangements in these two chambers were of a more 
modern model. In the other five the old bedsteads re- 
mained as they had been from time immemorial. They 
were of solid oak of two or three inches thickness in every 



AT WINCHESTER. 93 

part, and v/ero black with age. The part which held the 
bed was a box' about six feet and a half long by three 
wide, with solid sides some six inches deep, and supported 
on four massive legs. But at the head, for about eighteen 
inches or so, these sides were raised to a height of about 
four or five feet, and covered in. The whole construction 
was massive, and afforded an extremely snug and com- 
fortable sleeping-place, which was much preferred to the 
iron bedsteads in the two new chambers. Older bones 
might perhaps have found the oak planking under the bed 
somewhat hard, but we were entirely unconscious of any 
such objection. 

The door in every chamber was well screened from the 
beds. There was a huge fireplace with heavy iron dogs, 
on which we burned in winter large fagots' about four 
feet long. Four of such fagots was the allowance for 
each evening, and it was abundantly sufficient. It was 
the duty of the bedmakers, whose operations were all per- 
formed when we were in school, to put four fagots in 
each chamber, which we used at our discretion; i. e., at 
the discretion of the prefects in the chamber. As the eigh- 
teen prefects were distributed among the seven chambers, 
there were three prefects in each of the larger and two in 
each of the smaller chambers. By the side of each bed 
was a little desk, with a cupboard above, which was called 
a " toys," in which each boy kept the books he needed for 
work "in chambers," and any other private property. 
For his clothes he had also by his bedside a large chest, 
of a make contemporary with the bedstead, which served 
him also for a seat at the desk of the " toys." In the mid- 
dle of the chamber was a pillar, around which were hung 
our surplices. Over the huge fireplace was an iron sconce 
fixed in the wall, in which a rushlight, called by us a 
" f uncture," was burned all night. And the " prefect in 
course " was responsible for its being kept duly burning. 
The nightly rounds of the " hostiarius'''' were not frequent, 
but he might come at any minute of any night. Suddenly 
his pass-key would be heard in the door ; for it was the 
rule that every chamber-door should be kept locked all 
night; he came in with a lantern in his hand, and if all 



94 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

was right, ^. e., if the functure was duly burning, every 
boy in his bed, and his candle put out, he merely looked 
around and passed on to another chamber. If otherwise, 
the "prefect in course" had an interview with him on 
the following morning. These chamber-doors, Avhich, as I 
have said, it was the rule to keep alwaj^s locked during 
the night, were exceedingly massive, iron-bound, and with 
enormous locks and hinges. Now there was a tradition 
in college that a certain former " senior prefect in third " 
(subaudi chamber) had carried the door of that chamber 
round the quadrangle. Tlie Atlas thus remembered was 
a minor canon of the cathedral when I was " senior prefect 
in third," and the tradition of his prowess excited my em- 
ulation. So I had the door in question taken from its 
hinges and laid upon my bent back, and caused the door 
of " fourth " to be carefully placed on the top of it, and so 
carried both doors round the quadrangle, thus outdoing 
the minor canon by a hundred per cent. In due propor- 
tion the feat should surely have made me in time a canon! 
But it has not done so. I think, however, that I might 
challenge any one of my schoolfellows of the present gen- 
eration, whose constitutions are cared for by the early 
breakfasts which we did not get, to do likewise; suppos- 
ing, that is, tlie old doors to be still in existence, and in 
statu quo. From seven to eight we were, or ought to 
have been, at work, seated at our "toys" in chambers. 
And during that hour no " inferior" could leave the cham- 
ber without the permission of the "prefect in course." 
At eight we went into chapel — or, rather, into the ante- 
chapel only — for short prayers, and after that till nine we 
were free to do as we pleased. Some would walk up and 
down "sands," as the broad flagstone pavement below the 
chapel was called. 

Each prefect in the chamber had a little table, at which 
he sat during the evening, and which in the morning served 
as a washing-stand, on which it was the duty of the " jun- 
ior," who was his " valet," to place his basin and washing 
things. But all "inferiors" had to perform their ablu- 
tions at the " conduit " in the open quadrangle. In severe 
or wet weather this was not Sybaritic ! But again I say 



AT WINCHESTER. 95 

that it would have been difficult to find a healthier collec- 
tion of boys than we were. 

The discipline which regulated that part of college life 
spent " in chambers " must have been, I think, much more 
lax at a former day than it was in my time, for I remem- 
ber to have heard my father, who was in college under 
Dr. Warton, say that Tom Warton, the head-master's 
brother (and the well-known author of the "History of 
Poetry "), used frequently to be with the boys " in cham- 
bers " of an evening ; that he would often knock off a 
companion's " verse task " for him, and that the doctor 
the next morning would recognize "that rascal Tom's 
work." Now in my day it would have been altogether 
impossible and out of the question for any outsider, how- 
ever much an old Wykehamist, and brother of the mas- 
ter, to be with us in chambers. 

There was an anecdote current, I remember, among 
Wykehamists of that generation, respecting " that rascal 
Tom," to the effect that he narrowly missed becoming 
head of Trinity, of which college at Oxford he was a fel- 
low, under the following circumstances: There was a cer- 
tain fellow of the college, whose name need not here be 
recorded, rather famous among his contemporaries for the 
reverse of wisdom or intelligence. Upon one occasion 
Tom Warton was sitting in his stall in chapel close to the 
gentleman in question, who was reading the Psalms; and 
when the latter came to the verse, "Lord, thou knowest 
my simpleness," he was so indiscreet as to mutter, in an al- 
most audible tone, "Ay ! we all know tJiatP'' But it so 
chanced that, not very long afterwards, there was an elec- 
tion for the presidentship of the college, and Warton, who 
was a very popular man, was one of the two candidates. 
The college, however, was very closely divided between 
them, and "that rascal Tom" had to apply to his "sim- 
ple " colleague for his vote. " Not so simple as all that, 
Mr. Warton !" was the reply; and the story goes that the 
historian of poetry lost his election by that one vote. 

And this college chapel anecdote reminds me to say, 
before concluding my Wiccamical reminiscences, a few 
words about our chapel-going in the olden time. In this 



96 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

department, also, very much of change has taken place, 
doubtless, here at least, for the better. 

But it must be remembered that any change of this sort 
has been contemporaneous with change, at least as strong- 
ly marked in the same direction, in the general tone of 
English manners, sentiments, and habits. We English 
were not a devout people in the days when George the 
Third was king, especially as regards all that portion of 
the world which held aloof from evangelicalism and dis- 
sent. We were not altogether without religious feeling 
in college, but it manifested itself chiefly in the form 
of a pronounced abhorrence for those two, as we consid- 
ered them, ungentlemanlike propensities. For about three 
weeks, at Easter time, the lower classes in the school read the 
Greek Testament instead of the usual Greek authors, and 
the upper classes read Lowth's " Preelections on the Sacred 
Poetry of the Hebrews," a book unimpeachable in point 
of Latinity and orthodoxy, for was not the author a Wyke- 
hamist ? But I do not remember aught else in the way of 
religious instruction, unless it were found in the assiduity 
of our attendances at chapel. 

We went to chapel twice (including the short evening 
prayers in the chapel) every day. On Fridays we went 
three times, and on Saturdays also three times; the ser- 
vice in the afternoon being choral. On Sundays we went 
thrice to chapel and twice to the cathedral; on red-letter 
days thrice to chapel, and as often on "Founder's com- 
memoration" and "Founder's obit." These latter ser- 
vices, as also those on Sundays and holidays, were choral. 
We had three chaplains, an organist, four vicars choral, 
and six choristers for the service of the chapel. The " chor- 
isters," who were mentioned at a former page as carrying 
the "dispers" up into hall, though so called, had nothing 
to do with the choral service. They were twelve in num- 
ber, were fed, clothed, and educated by a master of their 
own, and discharged the duty of waiting on the scholars 
as messengers, etc., at certain hours. 

Our three chaplains were all of them, also, minor can- 
ons of the cathedral. Very worthy, good men "they were; 
one of them especially and exceptionally exemplary in his 



AT WINCHESTER. 97 

family relations; but their mode of performing the service 
in the chapel was not what would in these days be consid- 
ered decorous or reverential. Besides the chaplaincy of 
the college and the minor canonry of the cathedral, these 
gentlemen — all three of them, I believe — held small liv- 
ings in the city. And the multiplicity of duty which had 
thus to be done rendered a degree of speed in the perform- 
ance of the service so often a desideratum, and sometimes 
an absolute necessity, that that became the most marked 
characteristic of the performers. In reading, or, rather, 
intoning, the prayers, the habit was to allow no time at 
all for the choir to chant their "Amen," which had to 
be interjected in such sort that, when the tones of it died 
away, the priest had already got through two or three 
lines of the following prayer. One of our chaplains, who 
had the well-deserved character of being the fastest of the 
three, we called the diver. For it was his practice, in read- 
ing or intoning, to continue with great rapidity as long as 
his breath would last, and then, while recovering it, to 
proceed mentally, without interruption, so that we lost 
sight (or hearing) of him at one point, and when he came 
to the surface, i. e., became audible again, he was several 
lines further down the page; and this we called "diving." 
It was proudly believed in college that this was the gen- 
tleman of whom the story was first told that he was ready 
to give any man to " Pontius Pilate " in the Creed, and 
arrive at the end before him. But, however worthy com- 
petitor he may have been in such a race, I have reason to 
believe that the chaplain of a certain college in Oxford 
was the original of the story. 

Another of our three chaplains was a great sportsman. 
It was the practice that the lessons were always read in 
chapel by one of the prefects. 

I remember, by-the-bye (but this is parenthetical), that 
one of our number was unable to pronounce the letter " r," 
and we used to scheme that it should fall to his lot to tell 
us that " Baioabbas was a wobber." 

Now the boy who read the lessons, sat, not in his usual 
place, but by the side of the chaplain who was performing 
the service. And it was the habit of the reverend sports- 
5 



98 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

man I have referred to, to intercalate with the verses of 
the Psalm he was reading, sotto voce, anecdotes of his most 
recent sporting achievements, addressed to the youth at 
his side, using for the purpose the interval during which 
the choir recited the alternate verse. 

As thus, on one twenty-eighth evening of the month, 
well remembered after some sixty years: 
" Who smote great kings : for his mercy endureth forever." 

Then aside, in the well-known great rolling, mellow voice 
(I can hear it now) : 

" On Hurstley Down yesterday I was out with Jack 
Woodburn " (this was another minor canon of the cathe- 
dral, but not one of our chaplains). 
" Sehon king of the Amorites : for his mercy endureth forever." 

" My black bitch Juno put up a covey almost at our 
feet." ^ 

" And gave away their land for an heritage : for his mercy endureth for- 
ever." 

" I blazed away wdth both barrels and brought down a 
brace." 

"Who remembered us when wc were in trouble: for liis mercy endureth 
forever," 

"But Jack fired too soon and never touched a feather." 
And so on. 

ISTow there would be no sort of interest in recording that 
w^e unfortunately chanced to have at one time a very 
graceless chaplain, if such had been the case, which it was 
not. The interest lies in the fact that thv3 gentleman in 
question Avas a worthy and excellent man in all the rela- 
tions of life; that he was absolutely innocent of intentional 
impropriety; and that, as far as I can remember, we had 
none of us the faintest idea that we ought to have been 
shocked or scandalized. Such was the state of things and 
men's minds " sixty years since." 

The brother of this chaplain Vv^as the manciple of the 
college, and was known among us as " Damme Hopkins," 
from the following circumstance. His manner was a quaint 
mixture of pomposity and hojihomie, which made a con- 



AT WINCHESTER. 99 

versation with him a rather favorite amusement with some 
of us. Xow the manciple was a very well-to-do man, and 
was rather fond of letting it be known that his independent 
circumstances made the emoluments of the place he held 
a matter of no importance to him. "Indeed," he would 
say, "1 sj^oke to the bishop [the warden] a few months 
ago of resigning, but the bishop says to me, 'No, no, 
damme, Hopkins, you must keep the place.' " And I have 
no doubt that the deficiency of dramatic instinct which 
thus led the worthy manciple to transfer his own phrase- 
ology to his right reverend interlocutor rendered him quite 
unconscious of any inaccuracy in his narration. 

We used to go twice every Sunday, as I have said, to 
the cathedral. But we did not attend the whole morning 
service. We timed our arrival there so as to reach the 
cathedral at the beginning of the Communion service, and 
to be present at that and at the sermon which followed it. 
We had no sermons in college chapel, save on certain 
special occasions, such as 5th of November, "Founder's 
commemoration," or "Founder's obit." On the former of 
these occasions a sermon used to be preached with which 
we had become familiar by the annual repetition of it 
during a succession of years. I wonder how many there 
are left who will remember the words, " A letter was sent, 
couched in the most ambiguous terms, and who so likely 
to detect it as the king himself?" 

At the cathedral a series of benches between the pulpit 
and bishop's throne and the altar were reserved for us, so 
that the preacher was immediately in front and to the right 
of us. The surplice was used in the cathedral pulpit at 
the morning service, the Geneva gown at that in the after- 
noon. At the former one of the prebendaries or the dean 
was the preacher, at the latter a minor canon. 

I remember that we used to think a good deal of the 
dean's sermons, and always attended to them — a compli- 
ment which was not often paid, to the best of my recol- 
lection, to the other preachers. Dean Rennell was a man 
of very superior abilities, but of great eccentricity, mainly 
due to extreme absence of mind. It used to be told of 
him that unless Mrs. Rennell took good care, he was toler- 



100 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

ably certain, when he went up to his room to dress for a 
dinner-party, to go to bed. It will be understood from 
what has been said of the accommodation provided for us 
in the cathedral, that in order to face us, the preacher, 
addressing himself to the body of the congregation in the 
choir, must have turned himself round in the pulpit. And 
this Rennell would sometimes do, when he thought what 
he was saying especially calculated for our edification. He 
was, as I have already mentioned, a great Platonist, and 
when he alluded, as he not unfrequently did, to some doc- 
trine or opinion of the Grecian philosopher, he would turn 
to us arid say, in a sort of parenthetical aside, "Plato I 
mean." 

Amonor the stories that were current of Rennell I re- 

o 

member one to the effect that when upon one occasion he 
was posting from Winchester to London he stopped at 
Egham for luncheon. A huge round of boiled beef, nearly 
uncut, was placed upon the table. But the dean found it 
was as he thought, far too much boiled; so without more 
ado he cut the huge mass into four quarters and helped 
himself to a morsel from the centre! The landlady, when 
the mutilated joint was carried out, was exceedingly in- 
dignant, and insisted that a guinea should be paid for the 
entirety of it. The dean, much against the grain, as the 
chronicle goes, paid his guinea, but packed up the four 
quarters of the round and carried them off with him. 

Further indication of his eccentricity might be seen, as 
I remember, in his habit of wearing in the cathedral pulpit 
in cold weather, not a skull cap, but a flat square of velvet 
on his head, with which occasionally he would, in the heat 
of his discourse, wipe his face, then clap it on his head 
again. 

The cathedral, as I have had occasion to mention in a 
former chapter, had been undergoing a very extensive res- 
toration, one operation in the course of which had been 
the removal of the organ from over the screen; and the 
question whether it should be replaced there or be trans- 
ferred to the north transept was very earnestly, and, it 
was said, somewhat hotly debated by the chapter. The 
dean was exceedingly vehement in supporting the latter 



AT WINCHESTER. 201 

course, which was eventually adopted, it can scarcely be 
doubted by those who see the church as it now is, with 
entire judiciousness. 

I could, not without gratification to myself, chatter 
much more about reminiscences of the years I passed at 
Winchester. But I feel that the only excuse for having 
yielded to the temptation as far as I have must be sought 
in the illustrations afforded by what I have written of the 
large changes in habits, thoughts, customs, feelings that 
have been wrought in English society and English institu- 
tions by the lapse of some sixty years. 

And now the time had come when I, having attained 
the age of eighteen, was superannuated at the election in 
the July of 1828. It was not at that time certain whether 
I should or should not succeed to a fellowship at New 
College, for that depended upon the number of vacancies 
that might occur in the year up to the election of 1829. 
Eventually I missed it by, as I remember, one only. One 
more journey of "Speedyman" before July, 1829, an- 
nouncing the marriage or the death of a fellow of New 
College, or the acceptance of a college living by one of 
them, would have made me a fellow of New College. But 
^'Speedyman" did not make his appearance. 

I left Winchester a fairly good Latin scholar, and well 
grounded — I do not think I can say more — in Greek; and 
very ignorant indeed of all else. According to what I 
hear of the present day, I had no scholarly knowledge 
whatever of my own language. I knew nothing whatso- 
ever of Anglo-Saxon, or of mediaeval English. I had never 
— have never, I may rather say — had any English gram- 
mar in my hand from my cradle to the present hour. 

It is certain, however, that the enlarged requirements 
in this department, to which I have referred, have some- 
how or other failed to banish from the current literature 
of the day a vast number of solecisms, vulgarisms, and 
grammiatical atrocities of all sorts, which defile the lan- 
guage to a much greater degree than was the case at the 
time of which I have been writing, and which would have 
been as abhorrent to me when I left Winchester as they 
are now. 



102 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

Of arithmetic I knew nothing — I should write "know" 
— and of all that arithmetic should be the first step to, d 
fortiori, still less. In the art of writing I received the 
best possible instruction, for I was licked by my tutor and 
scourged by the masters if my writing was illegible. Of 
less indirect tuition I had none. 

There was a writing-master — one Mr. Bower, Fungy 
Bower he was called, why, I know not — who sat at a cer- 
tain low desk in the school during school-hours. I never 
received from him, or saw any one else receive from him, 
any instruction in writing. Nor did he, to the best of my 
knowledge and belief, form any part of William of Wyke- 
ham's foundation. The only purpose his presence in school 
appeared to serve w^as to mend pens and make up the 
weekly account of marks received by each boy which reg- 
ulated his place in the class. 

The register containing the account of these marks was 
called the "classicus paj)er," and was kept in this wise: 
All the members of each "class" — or "form" as it is called 
in other schools — continually changed places while pro- 
ceeding with the lesson before the master, each, if able to 
answer a question which those above him could not an- 
swer, passing up above them. And part of the punish- 
ment for failing altogether in any lesson, for being as the 
phrase was " crippled in Yirgil," or " crippled in Homer," 
was to go to the bottom of the class. Thus the order in 
which the class sat Avas continually changed. And the first 
business every morning was for the two boys at the head 
of the class to take the "classicus paper," and mark " 1." 
against the name of the boy at the bottom, " 2." against the 
next, and so on; so that the mark assigned to him at the 
head was equal to the number in the class. And this rec- 
ord of the marks was handed every week to Fungy Bower 
to be made up, so as to indicate the place in the class held 
by each member of it. But though this was done weekly, 
the account was carried on during the whole half year, so 
that a boy's final place in the class was the accurate result 
of his diligence and success during the whole " half." 

Of course I was a cricketer — we all were, and were, in- 
deed, obliged to be, whether willingly or not, until we be- 



AT WINCHESTER. 103 

came prefects, when, of course, those only who loved the 
game continued to practise it. I never was a great crick- 
eter, but have been " long stop " quite often enough to 
know how great is the nonsense talked by those of the 
present generation who maintain that all the elaborate 
precautions against being hurt which are so abundantly 
taken by the players of these latter days are necessitated 
by the greater force of the bowling as now practised. In 
simple truth this is all bosh ! though I can hardly expect 
a generation in cute curandd plus aequo operata to believe 
a very old batter and fielder when he tells them so ! 

My favorite game was fives. We had a splendid fives 
court, and the game was played in a manner altogether 
peculiar to Winchester; now I believe — like so much else 
— abandoned. We used a very small ball, hardly bigger 
than a good-sized walnut, and as hard as if made of wood, 
called a " snack." And this was driven against the wall 
by a bat of quite peculiar construction. It was made, I 
think, of ash, and there were only two men, rivals, who 
could make it. It was about a yard long, the handle 
round, and somewhat less than an inch in diameter. It 
then became gradually thinner and wider, till at about the 
distance of six inches from the extremity it was perhaps 
an inch and a half wide, and not thicker than half a crown. 
Then it expanded and thickened again into a head some- 
what of the shape of an ace of spades, some three inches 
across and half an inch thick. The thin part was kept 
continually well oiled — in such sort that it became so elas- 
tic that the heavy head might almost be doubled back so 
as to touch the part nearer the hand. It will be under- 
stood both that the difficulty of striking a bounding ball 
with this instrument was considerable, and that the mo- 
mentum imparted to the small hard ball by the blow was 
very great indeed. It is true that accidents occasionally, 
though very rarely, happened from a misdirected blow. 
But it does not seem necessary that the old bat should be 
abandoned, for our judicious grandsons might play with 
great comfort and safety in helmets ! 

Of course I, like most of my contemporaries, left Win- 
chester — and indeed subsequently left Oxford — as igno- 



104 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

rant of any modern language, save English, as of Chinese! 
And as for music — though Oxford and Cambridge are the 
only universities in Europe which give degrees in music — 
it is hardly an exaggeration to say that, with very rare 
exceptions, to have taught an undergraduate, or a boy at 
a public school, music, would have been thought much on 
a par with teaching him to hem a pocket-handkerchief. 
And here the present generation has the pull to a degree 
which it perhaps hardly sufficiently recognizes ! 

It was during my last year at Winchester that I made 
my first attempt at authorship. Old Robbins, the gray- 
headed bookseller of College Street, who had been the 
college bookseller for many years, had recently taken a 
younger partner of the name of Wheeler, and this gentle- 
man established a monthly magazine, called the Hamp- 
shire and West of England Magazine, to which I contrib- 
uted three or four articles on matters Wiccamical. I have 
the volume before me now — perhaps the only extant copy 
of that long - since - forgotten publication. The Rev. E. 
Poulter, one of the prebendaries of Winchester, who had 
a somewhat wider than local reputation as a wit in those 
days, was the anonymous contributor of a poetical pro- 
logue of such unconscionable proportions that poor Wheeler 
was sadly puzzled what to do with it. It was impossible 
to refuse or neglect a reverend prebendary's contribution, 
besides that the verses, often doggerel, had some good fun 
in them. So they were all printed by instalments in suc- 
cessive numbers, despite the title of prologue which their 
author gives them. 



CHAPTER VII. 

VISIT TO AMERICA. 

I CAME back from Winchester for the last time after the 
election of 1828, to find a great change at home. My 
father, pressed more and more by pecuniary difficulties, 
had quitted Harrow, and established himself at Harrow 
Weald, a liamlet of the large parish in the direction of 
Pinner. He had not given up his farm at Harrow. He 
w^ould have been only too glad to do so, for it involved an 
annual loss undeviatingly; but that he could not do, for 
his lease tied him to the stake. But he took another farm 
at Harrow Weald, on which there was an old farmhouse, 
which had once been a very good one, and, living there, 
carried on both farms. How far this speculation w^as a 
wdse one I have no means of judging. Doubtless he took 
the Harrow Weald farm upon very largely more advan- 
tageous terms than those which he had accepted from 
Lord North wick for the farm at Harrow; but having been 
absent all the time at Winchester, I knew so little about 
the matter that I do not now know even who his Harrow 
Weald landlord was. Possibly I did know, but have for- 
gotten. But I think I remember to have heard my father 
say that the Harrow Weald farm did in some degree alle- 
viate the loss sustained by the larger farm at Harrow, and 
that, could he have got rid of the latter, the Harrow 
Weald farm m^ight have paid its w-ay. The excellent 
house he had built at Harrow was, in the meantime, let to 
Mr. Cunningham, the vicar. 

The change from it to the old farmhouse at Harrow 
Weald, as a home, was not a pleasant one ; but a very 
far worse and more important change awaited my home 
coming, in the absence of my mother. She had gone to 
America. 

Where, or under what circumstances, my parents had 
5* 



106 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

first become acquainted with General La Fayette I do not 
know. I myself never saw him; but I know that it was 
during a visit to La Grange, his estate in France, that my 
mother first met Miss Frances Wright, one of two sisters, 
his wards. I believe she became acquainted with Camilla 
Wright, the sister, at the same time. 

It is odd, considering the very close intimacy that took 
place between my mother and Frances Wright, that I 
never knew anything of the parentage and family of these 
ladies, or how they came to be wards of General La Fay- 
ette. But with Miss Frances Wright I did become sub- 
sequently well acquainted. She was in many respects a 
very remarkable personage. She was very handsome in a 
large and almost masculine style of beauty, with a most 
commanding presence, a superb figure, and stature fully 
masculine. Her features both in form and expression 
were really noble. There exists — still findable, I suppose, 
in some London fonds de magazin — a large lithographed 
portrait of her. She is represented standing, with her 
hand on the neck of a gray horse (the same old gig liorse 
that liad drawn my parents and myself over so many miles 
of Devonshire, Somersetshire, and Monmouthshire roads 
and cross roads — not that which so nearly made an end of 
us near Lynmouth, but his companion), and, if I remember 
rightly, in Turkish trousers. 

But these particulars of her bodily form and present- 
ment constituted the least remarkable specialties of her 
individuality. She was unquestionably a very clever wom- 
an. She wrote a slender octavo volume, entitled "A Few 
Days in Athens," which was published by Longman. It 
was little more than a brochure, and it is many years since 
I have seen it, but the impression that it was very clever 
abides in my mind. I remember the fact that the whole 
edition was sold. And the mention of this book reminds 
me of a circumstance that seems to show that my parents 
must have become to a considerable degree intimate with 
these wards of General La Fayette at some period preced- 
ing the visit to La Grange, which exercised in the sequel 
so large an influence over my own, and my mother's, and 
brothers' future. This circumstance is that I recollect my 



VISIT TO AMERICA. IQ/y 

father to have been in communication with the Longmans 
on behalf of Miss Wright in respect to her work. 

Be this how it may, at the time of that visit to La 
Grange spoken of above, Miss Wright's thoughts and 
aspirations were directed with a persistent and indomita- 
ble enthusiasm, which made the ground-work of her char- 
acter, to doing something for the improvement of the con- 
dition of the slave populations in the southern states of 
the great transatlantic republic. Both Frances and Ca- 
milla Wright were ladies of considerable fortune ; and I 
believe that General La Fayette wished much to induce 
his ward Frances not to employ her means in the scheme 
she was now bent on. But she was of age — I fancy some 
six or seven years more than that — and he had no author- 
ity to interfere with her purpose, with which besides, 
otherwise than as likely to be pecuniarily disastrous to 
her, he entirely sympathized. 

Her purpose was to purchase a property in the valley 
of the Mississippi — in Alabama I think it was — with the 
slaves upon it, to free them all immediately, and to culti- 
vate the estate by their free labor, living there with them 
in a sort of community, the principles and plan of which 
were, I fancy, very largely based upon the ideas and 
schemes of Mr. Owen of Lanark. His son, Robert Dale 
Owen, subsequently well known in Europe as the author 
of sundry works on spiritualism and political speculations, 
and as United States Consul at Naples and perhaps other 
cities, was a lifelong friend of Miss AVright's. 

Now, my parents had taken with them to La Grange 
my next brother, Henry, who has been mentioned as the 
companion of my early London rambles, and who was 
then rapidly approaching manhood without having found 
for himself, or having had found for him, any clear pros- 
pect of earning the livelihood which it was clearly enough 
necessary that he should earn in some way; and Miss 
Wright proposed to my mother to bring him to America 
to join in her projected establishment and experiment at 
" New Harmony " — such I believe to have been the name 
which Miss Wright gave to her property. The original 
name, I think, was Nashoba, but my knowledge of any of 



108 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

these matters is very imperfect. I know that the whole 
scheme ended in complete disappointment to all con- 
cerned, and entire failure. To Miss Wright it involved 
very considerable pecuniary loss, which, as I learned sub- 
sequently from my mother, she bore with the utmost for- 
titude and cheerfulness, but without any great access of 
wisdom as regarded her benevolent schemes for the politi- 
cal and economical improvement of human, and especially 
black, society. I never saw her again; but remember to 
have heard of her marrying a French teacher of languages 
at the close of a course of lectures given by her against 
the institution of matrimony. All that I heard from my 
mother and my brother of their connection with Miss 
"Wright, of her administration of aif airs at New Harmony, 
and her conduct when her experiment issued in failure and 
disappointment, left with me the impression of her genu- 
inely high-minded enthusiasm, her unselfishness, bravery, 
and generosity, but, at the same time, of her deficiency in 
the qualities which can alone make departure from the 
world's beaten tracks — mill-horse tracks though they be — 
either wise, profitable, or safe. She had a fine and large 
intelligence, but not fine or large enough for going quite 
unpiloted across country. 

Whether my mother resided any time at Nashoba I am 
not sure, but I think not. At all events, very shortly 
after her arrival in America she established herself at 
Cincinnati. And when it became evident that there was 
no prospect of permanent work for my brother in the 
business of regenerating the negroes, it was determined — 
by the advice of what Cincinnati friends 1 know not — 
that he should join my mother there, and undertake the 
establishment and conduct of an institution which, as far 
as I was able to understand the plan, was to combine the 
specialties of an athenaeum, a lecture hall, and a bazaar! 
And it was when this enterprise had been decided upon, 
but before any steps had been taken for the realizing of 
it, that I accompanied my father on a visit to America. 

When I returned from Winchester, in July, there were 
still many months before me of uncertainty whether I 
might get a vacancy at New College or not, and my fa- 



VISIT TO AMERICA. 109 

ther, having determined on going for a short visit to Cin- 
cinnati, proposed to take me with him. After what I have 
written in a previous chapter of my early tastes and pro- 
clivities, I need hardly say that the prospect of this travel 
was in the highest degree delightful to me. I am afraid 
that, at the time, any call to New College, which should 
have had the effect of preventing it, would have been to 
me a very unwelcome one. Our deparfaire was fixed for 
September, and the intervening time was spent by me in 
preparations for the great adventure, very much such as 
Livingstone may be supposed to have made on quitting 
England for the "dark continent." 

I w^as, as it seems to me now, still a very boyish boy, all 
ex-Wiccamical prefect as I was, and, I cannot help think- 
ing, younger and more childish than the youngsters of 
equal age of the present generation. 

The voyage, however, really was a bigger affair in those 
days than it has become in these times, for it was before 
the iron horse had been trained to cross the Atlantic. 
And my father made it a very much more serious business 
still by engaging for us berths in the steerage of a passen- 
ger ship. I hardly think that he would have done so had 
lie been at all aware of what he was undertaking. It is 
true that he was undoubtedly hard pressed for money, 
though I have not now, and had not then, any such knowl- 
edge of his affairs as to enable me to judge to what degree 
he was straitened. But there was also about my father a 
sort of Spartan contempt for comfort, and determination 
not to expend money on his own personal well-being, 
which was a prominent feature in his character, and which, 
I have no doubt, contributed to the formation of his resolu- 
tion to make this journey in the least costly manner possible. 

But, as I have said, I think that he had no very clear 
notion of what a steerage passage across the Atlantic im- 
plied. As for me, if he had proposed to make the voyage 
on a raft I should have jumped at the offer! It was, in 
truth, a sufficiently severe experience. But, as I was then 
at eighteen, I should have welcomed the chance of mak- 
ing such an expedition, even if I had accurately realized 
all the accompaniments and all the details of it. 



110 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

We Avent on board the good ship Corinthian, Captain 
Chad wick, bound for New York, in the September of 1828. 
Ship and captain were American. 

I confess that my first feeling on entering the place 
which was to be my habitation during the next few weeks 
was one of dismay. It was not that the accommodation 
was rough. I cared little enough about that, and should 
have cared as litUe had it been much rougher. But it was 
the first time in my life that I had had any experience of 
the truth of the proverb that misfortune makes one ac- 
quainted with strange bedfellows! Of course there was 
in that part of the vessel allotted to the steerage passen- 
gers no sort of enclosure for the different berths, some 
dozen or score of them, in which the steerage passengers 
had to sleep. No sort of privacy either by day or by 
night was possible; add to which, the ventilation was very 
insuflScient, and the whole place was, perhaps unavoida- 
bly, dirty to a revolting degree. My father almost at 
once betook himself to his berth, and rarely left it during 
the entire voyage — indeed, he was for the most part inca- 
pable of doing so, having been suffering from his usual 
sick headache more or less during the whole time. If the 
voyage was a bad time for me, it must have been far 
worse for him. Indeed, I was scarcely ever below except 
when attending on him. 

Before the first night came I declared my intention of 
making no use of the berth assigned to me. Where was 
I to pass the night then ? I said I should pass it on deck. 
I had a huge greatcoat, a regular " dreadnought," so called 
in those days, and made with innumerable capes; and 
with that I should do well enough during the September 
night. My declared intention brought an avalanche of rid- 
icule down on my head, not only from my fellow-inhabi- 
tants of the steerage, but from the captain and his mates. 
A night on deck, or at the very most two, would make me 
glad and thankful enough for the shelter of my berth. I 
did not know what I was talking of, but should soon find 
out, etc. 

Well, the first night passed ! It was a fine moonlight. 
And I enjoyed it and the novelty of my surroundings 



VISIT TO AMERICA. lH 

keenly. I slept, wrapped in my capacious greatcoat, two 
or three hours at a time, and morning found me none the 
worse. The second night was less delightful ! I was 
weary, and began to feel the need of sleep after a fashion 
to which I was more accustomed. And then came bad 
weather, wet and cold ! I got some shelter in an erection 
on the deck called the " round-house ;" but the want of 
proper rest was beginning to tell upon me, and the fatigue 
was very severe. I think that, despite my horror of the 
steerage and the world that inhabited it, I should have 
succumbed and accepted its shelter if my determination 
not to do so had been confined to my own breast, and no 
necessity had existed for triumphing over the ridicule and 
the unanimous prophecies of the other passengers and the 
ship's officers. As it was, I was safe not to yield ! 

I did not yield I Our voyage was rather longer than an 
average one, and during all the thirty-eight days that it 
lasted I never passed a night below, or went there at all 
save for the purpose of changing my clothes or attending 
on my father, who lay sick and suffering in his berth during 
almost the whole time. It was a severer experience than 
it may seem, probably, to the imagination of those who 
never made a similar experiment. When I reached New 
York I felt as if it would be heaven to go to sleep for a 
week. 

We had one short spell of very bad weather, and were, 
as I subsequently learned, in considerable danger for an 
hour or so. We had been running all day before a fair 
wind exactly aft, which, continually increasing in violence, 
assumed at sun-down the force of a gale. Nevertheless, 
Captain Chad wick, against the advice of an old English 
merchant captain, who was a passenger, could not prevail 
on himself to lose the advantage of so good a wind, and 
determined to "cany on." But as the night advanced 
the wind continued to increase and the sea to rise, till the 
danger of being "pooped," if w^e continued to run before 
it, became too great to be neglected. But the danger of 
putting about, " broaching-to " I believe is the correct 
term, was also great. 

It became necessary, however, to do this about mid- 



112 WHAT I EEMEMBER. 

night, and I was the only passenger on deck during the 
operation. The English merchant captain mentioned above 
kept running up for a few minutes at a time every now 
and then; but he had a wife and young children aboard, 
and would not remain long away from them. The good 
ship, as she came round into the trough of the sea, lay 
down on her side to such a degree that my body, as I 
clung to the bulwark on the weather-side, swung away to 
the leew^ard in such a sort that I was for a minute hanging 
from a hold above my head, instead of clinging to one at 
my side. And I saw and heard — very specially heard — 
every sail blown away from the yards. I heard, too, the 
shout of the men on the yards, " We can't get an inch," 
as they strove to reef. Much danger was occasioned to 
the men by the block at the foot of the mainsail remain- 
ing attached to the sail, which was blown about, before it 
could be secured, with a violence which knocked the cook's 
galley to atoms. 

And all this I saw to my great delight. For I consid- 
ered a storm at sea as a part of the experiences of a voyage 
Avhich it would have been a great pity to have missed, and 
was altogether unaware that we were in any real danger. 
Towards daybreak the gale moderated, and before noon it 
was perfectly calm, and all hands were busy in bending a 
new suite of sails. 

With all this I should have enjoyed the voyage immense- 
ly had it not been for the nature of the companionship 
to w^hich I should have been condemned if I had not es- 
caped from it in the manner I have described. The utter 
roughness of the accommodation, the scanty and not very 
delicate food, would all have signified to me in those days 
absolutely nothing. But I could not tolerate the compan- 
ionship of the men and w^omen with whom I should have 
lived. I could have no doubt tolerated it some twenty 
years later, but it was at that time too new to me. I take it 
that ill-luck had given us a rather specially bad lot as our 
destined companions in the steerage. I had seen quite 
enough of the laborers on the farm at Harrow to know 
what a man living with his family on a pound a w^eek was 
like, and I could have managed to live, if necessary, with 



VISIT TO AMERICA. 



113 



such men for a week or two without any insuperable re- 
pugnance. But some of the denizens of that steerage hol- 
(jia were blackguards of a description quite new to me. 

Two figures among them are still, after nearly sixty 
years, present to my mental vision. One was a large, 
loosely-made, middle-aged man, who always wore a long 
gray-serge dressing-gown. He was accompanied by no- 
body belonging to him, and I never had the least idea 
what grade or department of life he could have belonged 
to. His language, though horrible, as regards the ideas 
conveyed by it, was grammatically far superior to that of 
most of those around him; and he was very clever with 
his hands, executing various little arrangements for his 
own comfort with the skill of a carpenter, and almost with 
that of an upholsterer. His face Avas thoroughly bad, 
with loose, baggy, flaccid, pale cheeks, and a great, coarse, 
hanging under lip. He always looked exceedingly dirty, 
but, nevertheless, was always clean-shaved. He was al- 
ways talking, always haranguing those who would listen 
to him; always extolling the country for which we were 
bound and its institutions, and expressing the most ven- 
omous hatred of England and all things English. I used 
to listen to him during my hours of attendance on my fa- 
ther with an excess of loathing which I doubt not I failed 
to conceal from him, and which, acting like a strong brine, 
has preserved his memory in my mind all these years. 

The other was much less objectionable. He was a 
younger man and called himself a farmer, but his farming 
had evidently run much to horse-dealing, and he dressed 
in a horsey style. He had a miserable, sickly wife with 
him, who had once upon a time been pretty. She wore 
the remains of dresses that had once been smart, and was 
by far the most slatternly woman I ever saw. Her hus- 
band, so far as I could observe, did not ill-treat her, but 
he was constantly saying unkind things in language which 
should have made her blush, if she had not left all blushes 
far behind her, and at which the other worse brute used 
to laugh with obstreperous approbation. He could sing, 
too, as I thought at that time, very well, and used to sing 
a song telling how " The farm I now hold on your honor's 



114 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

estate is the same that my grandfather held," etc. The 
tune of it runs in my head to this day; and I remember 
thinking that if the song related the singer's own fort- 
unes " his honor " must have gained by the change of ten- 
ant, however many generations of ancestors may have held 
it before him. 

By the time our voyage came to an end I was pretty 
nearly worn out by want of rest and night-and-day expos- 
ure of weather. But, to own the truth honestly, I was 
supported by a sense of pride in having sustained an 
amount of fatigue which none other in the ship had, and 
few probably could have, sustained, and which I had been 
defied to sustain. And after I had had a sleep "the round 
of the clock," as the phrase goes, I was none the worse. 
Moreover, it was a matter of extreme consolation to me to 
think that I was accumulating a store of strange experi- 
ences of a kind which nothing in my previous life had 
seemed to promise me. But, above all, the approach to 
New York, and the sight of the bay, was, I felt, more than 
enough to repay me for all the discomfort of the voyage. 
I thought it by far the grandest sight I had ever seen, as 
indeed, it doubtless was. 

I do not remember to have been much struck with the 
town of New York. I remember thinking it had the look 
of an overgrown colossal village, and that it was very dif- 
ferent in appearance from any English city. It seemed to 
me, too, that there was a strange contrast between the 
roomy, clean, uncity-like appearance of the place, and the 
apparent hurry and energetic ways of the inhabitants. I 
remember also remarking the very generally youthful ap- 
pearance of those who seemed to be transacting most of 
the business of the place. 

We were received most kindly by an old friend of my 
parents, Mr. Wilkes, the uncle, I think, or, perhaps, great- 
uncle of him who as Commodore Wilkes of the Trent sub- 
sequently became known to the world, as having very 
nearly set his country and England by the ears! How 
and why old Mr. Wilkes was a friend of my father's I do 
not know, but suspect that it was through the medium of 
some very old friends of my grandfather Milton, of the 



VISIT TO AMERICA. II5 

name of Garnet. Two very old ladies of that name, spin- 
ster sisters, I remember to have seen at Brighton some 
twenty or five-and-twenty years ago. I remember that 
Mr. Wilkes struck me as a remarkably courteous and gen- 
tlemanlike old man, very English both in manners and 
appearance, in a blue dress-coat and buff waistcoat, and 
long white hair. I fancy that he was connected in some 
v/ay (by old friendship only, I imagine) with the Misses 
Wright, and I gathered that he altogether disapproved of 
Frances Wright's philanthropic Nashoba enterprise, and 
consequently of the share in it which my father and moth- 
er, on behalf of my brother Henry, had undertaken. Of 
the wisdom of his misgivings the result furnished abun- 
dant proof. 

My recollections of the journey from New York to 
Cincinnati are of a very fragmentary description ; those of 
so very many other journeys during the well-nigh sixty 
years which have elapsed since it was performed have 
nearly obliterated them. I remember being struck by the 
uncomfortable roughness of all the lodging accommoda- 
tion, as contrasted with the great abundance, and even, 
as it appeared to me, luxury of the commissariat depart- 
ment. 

We passed by Pittsburgh and crossed the Alleghany 
Mountains, the former remaining in my memory as a 
nightmare of squalor, and the latter as a vision of beauty 
and delight. We travelled long days through districts of 
untouched forest over the often described "corduroy" 
roads. I was utterly disappointed by the forests; all that 
I saw of them appeared to me a miserable collection of 
lank, unwholesome - looking, woebegone stems, instead of 
Windsor Forest on a vastly increased scale, which was, I 
take it, what I expected. I remember, too, being much 
struck by the performance of the drivers of the stages 
over the corduroy roads aforesaid, and often over boggy 
tracts of half-reclaimed forest amid the blackened stumps 
of burned trees. The things they proposed to themselves 
to accomplish, and did accomplish without coming to 
grief, other than shaking every tooth in the heads of their 
passengers, would have made an English coachman's hair 



116 WHAT I KEMEMBER. 

stand on end. To have seen them at their work over a 
decent bit of road would, on the other hand, have provoked 
the laughter and contempt of the same critics. Arms and 
legs seemed to take an equal part in the work; the whip 
was never idle, and the fatigue must have been excessive. 
I do not think that any man could have driven fifty miles 
at a stretch over those roads. 

Cincinnati was reached at last. The journey to me had 
been delightful in the highest degree, simply from the 
novelty of everything. As things were done at that time 
it was one of very great fatigue, but in those days I seemed 
to be incapable of fatigue. At all events it was all child's 
play in comparison with my crossing the ocean in the good 
ship Corinthian. 

We found my mother and two sisters and brother Henry 
well, and established in a roomy, bright-looking house, 
built of wood, and all white with the exception of the 
green Venetian blinds. It stood in its own "grounds," 
but these grounds consisted of a large field, uncultivated 
save for a few potatoes in one corner of it; and the whole 
appearance of the place was made unkempt-looking — not 
squalid, because everything was too new and clean-look- 
ing for that — by uncompleted essays towards the making 
of a road from the entrance-gate to the house, and by 
fragments of boarding and timber, which it had apparent- 
ly been worth no one's while to collect after the building of 
the house was completed. With all this there was an air 
of roominess and brightness which seemed to me very 
pleasant. The house was some five or ten minutes' walk 
from what might be considered the commencement of the 
town, but it is no doubt by this time, if it still stands at 
all, more nearly in the centre of it. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

VISIT TO AMERICA — {contifiued) . 

My father and I remained between five and six months 
at Cincinnati, and my remembrances of the time are pleas- 
ant ones. In the way of amusement, to the best of my 
recollection, there was not much besides rambling over the 
countiy with my brother, the old companion of those Lon- 
don rambles which seemed to me then almost as far off in 
the dim past as they do now. But we were free, tied to 
no bounds, and very slightly to any hours. And I enjoyed 
those rambles immensely. I do not remember that the 
country about Cincinnati struck me as especially interest- 
ing or beautiful, and the Ohio, la belle 9'iviere, distinctly 
disappointed me. But it was a new world, and every ob- 
ject, whether animate or inanimate, was for us full of in- 
terest. 

Looking back to those Cincinnati days, I have to say 
that I liked the Americans, principally, I think, at that 
time, as far as my remembrances serve, because some 
quality in their manners and behavior had the effect of 
making me less shy with them than with others. I was 
then, and to a great degree have never ceased to be, pain- 
fully shy. How miserably this w^eakness afflicts those who 
suffer from it, how it disqualifies them and puts them at a 
disadvantage in circumstances constantly recurring, those 
who are free from it cannot imagine. And they glorify 
their superiority by saying all sorts of hard things to those 
who suffer from shyness — very unjustly in my opinion. 
Shyness proceeds in almost all cases, I should say probably 
in all, from difiidence. A man who thinks sufficiently well 
of himself is never shy. Did any one ever see a vain man 
shy? I do not think the Americans are an especially vain 
people; but there are specialties of their social condition 
which lead to every American citizen's estimate of himself, 



118 WHAT I KEMEMBER. 

from the cradle upwards, being equal to his estimate of 
any other man. And one consequence of this is a certain 
frank and unconstrained manner in their intercourse with 
strangers or new acquaintances which is invaluable to a 
shy man. 

I remember an incident of my first year at Winchester, 
when I was between ten and eleven, which is illustrative 
of the misery w^hich shyness may inflict. A boy about a 
year my senior, and taller than I, was constantly annoying 
and bullying me, and one day in the presence of a consid- 
erable number of onlookers challenged me to fight him. 
I refused, and naturally, of course, was considered a cow- 
ard, and had to endure the jibes and taunts due to one. 
The explanation of my refusal of my enemy's challenge, 
however — never offered to mortal ear before the confiding 
of it to this page — was not that I w^as afraid to fight, but 
was too shy to do so. It was not that I could not face all 
that his fists could do to me, as I shortly afterwards 
showed him; but I could not bring myself to face the 
publicity of the proposed contest — the formality of it, the 
ring, in the centre of which I should have to perform, and 
to be a spectacle, and have my performance criticised. 
All this was too absolutely intolerable to me. But early 
the next morning, chancing to catch my adversary "in 
meads " with only one or two others near him, I attacked 
him, to his utter astonishment and dismay, and w-ithout 
very much difficulty gave him as good a pummelling as 
my heart desired. 

Whether this incident originated the nickname " Badg- 
er," which I bore at Winchester, as being one indisposed 
to fight, but likely to prove dangerous if " drawn," I do 
not know. 

It w^as during our stay at Cincinnati that my father and 
I paid a visit to an establishment of "Shaking Quakers," 
as they were called, and I believe called themselves, at 
Mount Lebanon, about five-and-twenty miles from Cincin- 
nati. We w^ere hospitably received, paying a moderate 
remuneration for our lodging and food. Both these were 
supplied of exactly the same kind and quality as used by 
the inmates of the establishment, and were, though very 



VISIT TO AMERICA. 119 

simple and plain, admirable in quality. The extensive 
farm on which the Shakers lived, and which they culti- 
vated by their own labor, was their ow^n property, having 
been originally purchased at a time when land was of very 
small market value, and brought under tillage by the la- 
bor of the members. But nothing in the nature of private 
property w^as held or retained by any one. 

The number of women was about equal to that of the 
men. But there were no children. None were born in 
the establishment, and no man or woman joining it was 
allowed to bring any. Nor was marriage nor connubial 
life in any sort recognized or permitted. And, of course, 
these conditions rendered the whole experiment wholly 
useless as an example for the conduct of any ordinary 
community, or for an indication of what may be econom- 
ically accomplished for such. 

We did not eat in company with the members, though 
faring, as I have said, exactly as they did, but we were 
present at their religious worship, or at what stood in the 
place of such. This consisted in a species of dance, if the 
uncouth jumping or " shaking " which they practised could 
be so called. The men and women were assembled and 
danced in the same room, but not together. They jumped 
and " shook " themselves in two divided bodies. Any 
spectator would be disposed to imagine that the whole 
object of the performance was bodily exercise. It seemed 
to be carried on to the utmost extent that breath and bodi- 
ly fatigue would permit. Many were mopping the per- 
spiration from their faces. No laughing or gladness or 
exhilaration whatever appeared to accompany or to be 
caused by the exercise. All was done with an air of per- 
fect solemnity. 

All the men and all the women seemed to be in the en- 
joyment of excellent health. Most of them seemed to be 
somewhat more than well nourished — rather tending to 
obesity. They were florid, round-faced, sleek and heavy 
in figure. I observed no laughter, and very little conver- 
sation among them. The women were almost all in the 
prime of life, and many young. But there was a singular 
absence of good looks among them. Some had regular 



120 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

features enough, but they were all heav}^, fat, dull-look- 
ing, like well-kept animals. I could not spy one pair of 
bright eyes in the place. All, men and women, were quite 
simply but thoroughly well and cleanly dressed, not alto- 
gether, as I remember, in uniform, but with very great 
uniformity. Gray cloth of very fair quality was the pre- 
vailing material of dress for both sexes. 

Various articles useful for country life of the simpler 
sort were manufactured by them for sale. And I learned 
that all the articles so made had throughout the country 
side a high reputation for excellence in their kinds. And 
there could be no doubt that the Shaker community was 
thriving and probably accumulating money. To what 
object they should do so seems a difficult question. 

I heard of no sickness or infirmity among them. Such 
there must of course have been occasionally, and I presume 
that the infirm, the sick, and the dying must have been 
cared for. 

These people lived in perfect equality* and their com- 
munity proved that a community of men and women (un- 
burdened with children) could by an amount of labor by 
no means excessive, or even arduous, provide themselves 
with an ample sufficiency of all things needful for their 
material well-being and comfort. It is true that they paid 
no rent, but I am disposed to think, from what I heard, 
that they might have paid a moderate rent for the land 
they cultivated, and still continued to do well. But it was 
impossible to avoid the reflection that this well-being was 
merely that of well-kept animals. There was an air of un- 
mistakable stupidity over the whole establishment. No- 
body laughed. Nobody seemed to converse. There was 
excellent lodging, clothing, and food in plenty till they 
died ! And that was all. Perhaps it may be fairly as- 
sumed that no one, save people of very mediocre powers 
and intelligence, had ever felt tempted to become a Shak- 
ing Quaker. But it can hardly be said that their experi- 
ment exhibited a very tempting sample of a world to be 
modelled after their fashion ! 

It has been said by some observers that this materially 
flourishing establishment has so many points of similarity 



VISIT TO AMERICA. 121 

with the conventual institutions of Roman Catholicism 
that it may be considered as supplying the same natural 
want to which those institutions are supposed to cor- 
respond, an asylum, that is to say, for those of either sex, 
who, from various circumstances of fortune, or of tempera- 
ment, are unfitted for the struggles of the world, and find 
themselves left stranded on the banks of the great social 
stream. The impressions I received from my visit to 
Mount Lebanon do not dispose me to accept any such ex- 
planation of the Shaking Quaker raison cVUre. I saw no 
signs whatever, among either the men or the women, of 
individuals who had been tempest-tossed in any of the 
world's maelstroms, or of temperaments for which the 
contemplative life might be supposed to have had greater 
attractions than the active life of the world. The charac- 
teristics which were most notably observable were of a di- 
ametrically opposed kind. One would say that they were 
men and women thoroughly and unanimously minded to 
make for themselves in the most judiciously contrived 
manner a comfortable and clean sty, with abundant and 
perennial supply of everything needed for their bodily 
w^ants. Whether love or hatred, as they are found to 
exist in monastic communities, existed among them, of 
course I had not sufficient opportunity for even guessing. 
But assuredly it may be said with some confidence of not 
being mistaken, that neither those nor any other passions 
had left any of their usual marks on those sleek bodies and 
placid, meaningless faces. One would have said that the 
main and engrossing object of existence at Mount Lebanon 
was digesting. 

I have recently learned that the community continues 
to exist under the same conditions as those under which I 
saw it, 

I made acquaintance, I remember, at Cincinnati, with 
Mr. Long worth, who was, or became well known through- 
out America for his successful efforts in viticulture. He 
was one of those men who, being by no means entertain- 
ing companions on any other subject, become so, if you 
will talk to them upon their own. I have often thought 
that the " sink the shop " maxim is a great mistake. If I 
6 



122 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

had to pass an hour with a chhuney-sweep I should prob- 
ably find him very good company if he would talk ex- 
clusively about sweeping chimneys. Mr. Longworth was 
extremely willing to talk exclusively on schemes for the 
introduction of the vine into the Western States, and on 
that subject was well worth listening to. I find a note in 
a diary, written by me at that time, to the effect that he 
was then (1828) employing a large number of Germans on 
his estate at Columbia, near Cincinnati, at a little less than 
one shilling a day and their food. I remarked that this 
seemed scarcely in accord with the current accounts of 
the high price of labor in the States, and was answered 
that his — Mr. Longworth's — bailiff had said to him the 
other day, " If those men get to Cincinnati they will be 
spoiled'''' — a little touch which rather vividly illustrates 
one phase of the difference made in all things by railway 
communication. 

But the most remarkable acquaintance we made at Cin- 
cinnati was Hiram Powers, the subsequently well-known 
sculptor, with whom I again fell in many years afterwards 
at Florence, when he was living there with his large fam- 
ily, having just acquired a great and lucrative degree of 
celebrity by his statue of " The Greek Slave," purchased 
by an Englishman whom my mother had taken to visit his 
studio. I do not know by what chance she had first be- 
come acquainted with him at Cincinnati. • 

He was at that time about eighteen years old, much 
about my own contemporary; and my mother at once re- 
marked him as a young man of exceptional talent and 
promise. He was then seeking to live hj his wits, with 
every prospect of finding that capital abundantly suffi- 
cient for the purpose. There was a Frenchman named 
Dorfeuille at Cincinnati, who had established Avhat he 
called a " museum" — a show, in fact, in which he collected 
anything and everything that he thought would excite the 
curiosity of the people and induce them to pay their quar- 
ter dollars for admission. And this M. Dorfeuille, cleverly 
enough appreciating young Powers' capabilities of being 
useful to him, had engaged him as factotum and general 
manager of his establishment. Powers, casting about for 



VISIT TO AMERICA. 123 

some new " attraction" for the museum, chanced one even- 
ing to talk over the matter with my mother. And it oc- 
curred to her to suggest to him to get up a representation 
of one of Dante's bolgias as described in the Inferno. The 
nascent sculptor, with his imaginative brain, artistic eye, 
and clever fingers, caught at the idea on the instant. And 
forthwith they set to work, my mother explaining the 
poet's conceptions, suggesting the composition of "tab- 
leaux," and supplying details, while Powers designed and 
executed the figures and the necessary mise en schie. 

Some months of preparation were needed before the 
work could be accomplished, and Dorfeuille, I remember, 
began to have misgivings as to recouping himself for the 
not inconsiderable cost. But at last all was ready. A 
vast amount of curiosity had been excited, in the place by 
preliminary announcements, and the result was an immense 
success. I have preserved for nearly sixty years, and have 
now before me, the programme and bill of the exhibition 
as it was drawn up by my mother. It is truly a curiosity 
in its kind, and I am tempted to reproduce it here. But 
it is too long, occupying four pages of a folio sheet. There 
are quotations from the Inferno^ translated by my mother 
(no copy of any published translation being then and there 
procurable), explanations of the author's meaning, and de- 
scriptions in very bugaboo style, and in every variety of 
type, with capitals of every sort of size, of all the horrors 
of the supposed scene. 

The success was so complete, and the curiosity, not only 
of the Cincinnati world but of the farmers round about and 
their families, was so eager, that the press of spectators 
was inconveniently great, and M. Dorfeuille began to fear 
that his properties might be damaged by indiscreet desires 
to touch as well as see. So Powers arranged a slight metal 
rod as a barrier between the show and the spectators, and 
contrived to charge it with electricity, while an announce- 
ment, couched in terrible and mystic terms and in verse, 
by my mother, to the effect that an awful doom awaited 
any mortal rash enough to approach the mysteries of the 
nether world too nearly, was appended to the doors and 
walls. The astonishment and dismay felt, and the laugh- 



124 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

ter provoked, by those who were rash enough to do so, 
may be imagined ! 

IJpon the whole those autumn and winter months passed 
pleasantly, and have left pleasant recollections in my mem- 
ory. Doubtless there were many causes of anxiety for my 
elders ; but to the best of my remembrance they touched 
us young people very lightly. We had many more or less 
agreeable acquaintances, and I have a vivid recollection of 
the pleasure I received from the fact that they all belonged 
to types that were altogether new to me — if indeed it could 
be said of people, to me so apparently unclassifiable, that 
they belonged to any type at all. The cleverest among 
them was a Dr. Price, a very competent physician with a 
large practice, a foolish, friendly little wife, and a pair of 
pretty daughters. He was a jovial, florid, rotund little 
man who professed, more even, as I remember, to my as- 
tonishment than my horror, perfect atheism. His wife 
and daughters used to go to church without apparently 
producing the slightest interruption of domestic harmony. 
" La ! the doctor don't think anything more of the Bible 
than of an old newspaper!" Mrs. Price would say; "but 
then doctors, you know, they have their own opinions !" 
And the girls used to say, " Papa is an atheist," just as 
they would have said of the multiform persuasions of their 
acquaintances, " Mr. This is a Baptist," and " Mrs. That is 
a Methodist." And I remember well the confusion and 
displacement occasioned in my mind by finding that Dr. 
Price did not seem on the whole to be an abandoned man, 
and enjoyed to a high degree the respect of his townsmen. 

The two pretty daughters, girls of eighteen or nine- 
teen, used to have at their house frequent dances. We 
were constant and welcome guests, but, alas ! I was not — 
either then or ever since — a dancer ; the reason being pre- 
cisely the same as that which prevented my fighting at 
Winchester, as above recorded. I was too shy ! In other 
words, I had too low an opinion of myself, of my perform- 
ance as a dancer, should I attempt it, and, above all, of my 
acceptability as a partner, ever to overcome my diffidence. 

I was, as I have said when speaking of my earliest years, 
by no means a prepossessing child, and as a young man I 



VISIT TO AMERICA. 125 

was probably less so. I had never any sort of pretension 
to good looks or to elegance of figure. I was five feet 
eight in height, and thick, sturdy, and ungainly in make, 
healthy and pure in complexion and skin as a baby, but 
with an "abbreviated nose" — as George Eliot says of me 
in finding me like a portrait of Galileo — and pale-colored, 
lanky hair. All which would not have signified a button 
if I could have been as ignorant of the facts in question 
as hundreds of my contemporaries, laboring under equal 
disadvantages, were in their own case ; but I was not ig- 
norant of these facts, and the consciousness of them con- 
stituted a most mischievous and disqualifying little repast 
off the tree of knowledge. It has, among many other re- 
sults, prevented me from ever dancing. I should have 
liked much, very much, to do so. I was abundantly well 
disposed to seek the society of the other sex. Though I 
never had a very perfect ear for tune, I had a markedly 
strong perception of time and feeling for rhythm, and 
therefore should probably have danced well. But the per- 
suasion that any girl whom I might have induced to dance 
with me would have far rather been dancing with some- 
body else was too much for me ! 

I should unquestionably have been a far happier young 
fellow if I had undoubtingly believed myself to have been 
adapted in all respects to attract the favorable attention 
and conciliate the liking of all I met. But can I even novv^, 
looking back over the vista of sixty years, regret that I 
was able to see myself as others saw me, and wish that I 
had inhabited that fool's paradise which is planted with 
conceits in place of insights? 

So I got no dancing with the Cincinnati girls. But 
there were theatricals, also, at the house of Dr. and Mrs. 
Price, and in those I did not refuse to join. It may seem 
that this would have been at least as great a trial to a shy 
man as any other form of self-exhibition; but it was not 
so. I think, so far as I am able at this distance of time 
to examine my mind upon the subject, it would have been 
impossible for me to attempt the representation of any per- 
sonage intended to be attractive to the spectator, or such as 
to be confounded in his mind with my own personality. 



126 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

But it was proposed that I should act Falstaff in the "Mer- 
ry Wives of Windsor," and to this the difficulties referred 
to did not apply. I played Falstaff with immense success 
to an assuredly not very critical audience. My own im- 
pression, however, is, that I did it well. I think that I 
had reason to flatter myself, as I did flatter myself at the 
time, that all those who heard me understood the play 
and enjoyed the humor of the situations better than they 
had done before. 

I have played many parts since, on various stages, in 
different parts of the world, but that, I think, was my sole 
Shakesperian attempt. And the members of that merry 
and kindly theatrical company ! They have made their 
last exit from the larger boards we are all treading, every 
man and woman, every lad and lass of them. Not one 
but the old Falstaff of the company remains to write this 
chronicle of sixty years since ! 

There were very few formal meetings among the nota- 
bilities of the little Cincinnati world of that time, but there 
was an amount of homely friendliness that impressed me 
very favorably; and there was plenty of that generous 
and abounding hospitality which subsequent experience 
has taught me to consider an especially American charac- 
teristic. I have since that time shared the splendid hos- 
pitality of splendid American hosts, and I have been un- 
der American roofs where there was little save a heartfelt 
welcome to offer. But the heart-warming effect j^roduced 
by the latter was the same in both cases. How often have 
we all sat at magnificent boards where the host's too evi- 
dent delight consisted in giving you what you could not 
give him, and in the exulting manifestation of his magnif- 
icence. This is very rarely the feeling of an American 
host. He is thinking not of himself, but of you ; and the 
object he is striving at when giving you of his best is that 
you should enjoy yourself while under his roof ; that you 
should have, as he would phrase it, " a good time." And, 
upon my word, he almost invariably succeeds. 

Nor Avere the Cincinnati girls in 1829 like the New 
York belles of 1887. But there was much of the same 
charm about them, which arises from unaffected and un- 



VISIT TO AMERLCA. 127 

self-regarding desire to please. American girls are ac- 
cused of being desperate flirts. But many an Englishman 
lias been deceived by imagining that the smiles and cheer- 
fulness and laughing chatter of some charming girl new 
to Europe were intended for his special benefit, when they 
were, in truth, only the perfectly natural and unaffected 
outcome of a desire to do her duty in that state of life to 
which it has pleased God to call her ! Only beams falling, 
like those of the sun, upon the just and the unjust alike ! 

There is another point on which Americans, both men 
and women, are very generally called over the coals by 
English people, as I think somewhat unreasonably. They 
are, it is said, everlastingly talking about the greatness 
and grandeur of their country, and never easy without ex- 
torting admissions of this. All this is to a great extent 
true ; at least to this extent, that an American is always 
pleased to hear the greatness of his country recognized. 
But when I remember the thoroughness with which that 
cardinal article of an Englishman's faith (sixty years ago !), 
that every Englishman could thrash three Frenchmen, was 
enforced with entire success on my youthful mind, I can 
hardly find it in my conscience to blame an American's 
pride in his country. Why, good heavens ! what an insen- 
sible block he would be if he was not proud of his country, 
to whose greatness, it is to be observed, each individ- 
ual American now extant has contributed in a greater de- 
gree than can be said to be the case as regards England 
and every extant Englishman ; inasmuch as our position 
has been won by the work of, say a thousand years, and 
his by that of less than a century. Surely the creation of 
the United States as they now exist within that time is 
such a feat of human intelligence and energy as the world 
has never before seen, and is scarcely likely to see again. 
I confess that the expression of American patriotism is 
never offensive to me. I feel somewhat as the old Cornish 
wrestler felt, who said, with immense pride, when he was 
told that his son had " whopped " the whole parish, " Ay, 
I should think so ! Why, he has whopped me afore now !" 

Yes ! I liked the Americans as I first made acquaintance 
with them almost among the backwoods at Cincinnati sixty 



128 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

years ago ; and I like them as I have since known them 
better. For I have seen a great deal of them ; far more 
than an Englishman living at home would be likely to do, 
during my many years' residence in Italy. The American 
" colony," to use the common, though incorrect phrase, is 
large both at Florence and in Rome ; of late years fully 
as large, I think, as that from England. And not only do 
the two bodies associate indiscriminately with each other 
in perfect neighborliness and good-fellowship, but they do 
so, forming one single oasis in the midst of the surround- 
ing Continental life, in a manner which makes one con- 
stantly feel how infinitely nearer an American is to an 
Englishman in ideas, habits, ways, and civilization than 
either of them are to any other denizen of earth's surface. 

I was sorry when the time came for us to leave Cincin- 
nati, though, as usual with me, the prospect of the jour- 
ney, which we were to make by a different route from that 
by which we had travelled westward, was a joy and a con- 
solation. My father and I returned, leaving my mother, 
my two sisters, still quite children, and my brother Henry 
at Cincinnati. The proposed institution — bazaar, athenag- 
um, lecture-hall, or whatever it was to be, or to be called — 
had been determined on, and the site, to the best of my 
recollection, selected and purchased ; but nothing had yet 
been done towards raising the building. Contracts had 
been entered into, and my father was on his return to 
London to send out a quantity of goods for the carrying 
out of the commercial part of the scheme. 

He did so. But I had no share in or knowledge of the 
operations undertaken for this purpose, and may therefore 
as well relate here the upshot of the ill-fated enterprise. 
I learned subsequently that very large quantities of goods 
were sent out of kinds and qualities totally unfitted for the 
purpose. The building was duly raised, and I have been 
told by Americans who had seen it that it was a handsome 
and imposing one. But the net result was disaster and 
ruin. My father, having been educated to be a chancery 
barrister, was a good one. He became a farmer with no 
training or knowledge necessary for the calling, and it 
proved ruinous to him. He then embarked on this com- 



VISIT TO AMERICA. 129 

mercial speculation, which, inasmuch as he was still more 
ignorant of all such matters than he was even of farming, 
turned out still more entirely disastrous. 

My father and I, as I have said, did not return from Cin- 
cinnati to New York by the same route by which we had 
travelled westward. We went by the lakes and Niagara, 
visiting, also, Trenton Falls en route. Had I written this 
page immediately after my journey, instead of sixty years 
after, I might have been justified in attempting — and no 
doubt should, in any case, have attempted — some descrip- 
tion of the great " water-privilege," which I saw as it will 
never be seen again. The two great cataclysms which 
have occurred since that time have entirely changed, and 
in a great measure spoiled, the great sight. And now, I 
am told, this " so-called nineteenth century" (as I read the 
other day in the fervid discourse of some pessimist orator) 
intends before it closes to utilize the lake as a mill-dam 
and the falls as so much " power." 

I remember that I enjoyed Trenton most. It appealed 
much less, of course, to the imagination and the sense of 
wonder, but far more to one's appreciation of the beau- 
tiful. 

Our Niagara visit was in a great measure spoiled by 
my father's illness. He was suffering from one of his 
worst sick-headaches. He dragged himself painfully to 
the usual spot near the hotel whence the fall is command- 
ed, and, having looked, got back to his bed. I had plenty 
of hours at my disposal for rambling in all directions, but, 
as usual with me, had not a coin of any sort in my pocket. 
The fall and its environs were not as jealously locked and 
gated and guarded as has been the case since ; but I was as- 
sured that I should be very unwise to attempt to penetrate 
below and behind the fall without a guide, and I should 
have been most willing to employ one had I possessed the 
means. But to lose the opportunity of enjoying a sight 
to which I had so eagerly looked forward was out of the 
question, and I did succeed in making my way by the slip- 
pery and rather terrible path behind the fall, rewarded by 
an effect of the sun on the sheet of falling water as perfect 
and admirable as if it had been ordered expressly for me, 
6* 



130 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

and none the worse for the enterprise save returning to 
the inn as thoroughly drenched as if I had been dragged 
through the fall ! Little enough I cared for that in those 
days! 

I may mention here ope of those singular coincidences 
which, though in reality so frequently occurring, are ob- 
jected to in a novelist's pages as passing the bounds of 
credibility. Many years after the date of my visit to 
Niagara the mother of ray present wife was there, and 
saw from the balcony of the hotel a boat with two rowers 
in it, who had incautiously approached too near the fall, 
carried over it ! Her account of the horror of the sight, 
and of the sudden and evident despair of the frantically 
struggling rowers was very impressive, and hardly less so 
when I heard it for the second time from an American 
met by chance in Italy, who, sitting in that same balcony 
at that same hour, had witnessed the same catastrophe ! 

At New York we were again most kindly and cordially 
received by Mr. Wilkes, who gave my father much advice 
respecting his projected Cincinnati venture — advice whol- 
ly, as I take it, ignored. 

Taught by experience, however, my father did not at- 
tempt a second steerage passage. We came back com- 
fortably enough, and had an entirely prosperous voyage, 
the result being that my remembrances of it are very far 
less vivid than those of my steerage experience. We 
reached England in March, and again took up our abode 
at Harrow Weald, where I, with such very imperfect 
means and appliances as were at my disposition, was to 
employ the abundant hours in preparing, in accordance 
with my own unassisted lights, for the university. 

Bad, however, as my father's circumstances were at this 
time, and little pleasant in any way as was our life in the 
farmhouse at Harrow Weald, I remember an excursion 
made by him and me, the only object of which, I think, 
could have been amusement. My father had an old friend 
named Skinner (no relative of the vicar of my uncle 
Meetkerke's parish of Julians, of whom I have spoken in 
a former chapter), who was the rector of a parish near 
Bath. He was a widower, living with an only daughter, 



VISIT TO AMERICA. 131 

and was, I remember, an enthusiastic student of ancient 
British history in connection with the localities around 
him. One of the tw^o days we remained with him was de- 
voted to a visit to Cheddar Cliffs. Mr. Skinner mounted 
us, and we rode a partie carrhe^ he and my father. Miss 
Skinner and I, some twelve or fourteen miles to Cheddar. 
She was a pretty, bright girl, and I found her a charming 
companion in a scramble to the top of the cliffs overlook- 
ing the gorge through which the road runs. We became, 
indeed, such good friends, that, on our homeward ride, we 
gradually drew away from our respective parents nnd 
reached home a good half-hour before they did — which 
procured for us both a scolding for knocking the horses 
up. 

It was roughish riding, too, as I remember, for the road 
was very different from what I found it some months ago, 
when, revisiting Cheddar, I saw on the top of the hill a 
notice to bicycle riders that the descent is dangerous for 
them. 



CHAPTER IX. 

AT OXFORD. 

As the j^ear wore on without any prospect of a vacancy 
at New College, it became necessary to decide what should 
be done as regards sending me to the university. My 
father was very ill able to support the expense of this. 
But I had received from Winchester two exhibitions — all 
that the college had in its power to bestow — and he 
was very unwilling that I should be unable to avail my- 
self of them. 

Concomitantly with continued increase in the frequency 
and intensity of his headaches, my father's irritability of 
temper had increased to a degree which made him a very 
difficult person to live with. For simple assent to his 
utterances of an argumentative nature did not satisfy him ; 
he would be argued with. Yet argument produced irrita- 
bility leading to scenes of painful violence, which I had 
reason to fear hastened the return of his suffering. But 
the greatest good, in his opinion, that could then be 
achieved for me, was that I should have a university 
education ; ancl thiy he was steadfastly minded to pro- 
cure for me at any cost of pressure and privation. 

And then the question arose, at what college should I 
matriculate ? 

My father eventually selected Alban Hall — a singular 
and hardly a judicious choice in any case, but which un- 
der the circumstances, as they subsequently arose, proved 
a disastrous one. My father's financial position was at the 
time such that it would have seemed reasonable that he 
should have been in a great measure guided in his choice 
by the consideration of expense. But siich was not the 
case. For Alban Hall was at that time by no means a 
specially inexpensive place of academical residence. No ! 
the ruling motive was to place me under Whately, who 



AT OXFORD. 133 

bad about four j'cars previously been appointed by Lord 
Granville Principal of Alb an Hall. My father, as I have 
mentioned, was a "Liberal," and Whately's Liberalism 
was the point in his character by which he was most 
known to the world in general. I do not think that any 
personal acquaintance, or even contact, had ever existed 
between my father and Whately. The connecting link I 
take to have been Whately's friend Senior. Whately's 
Liberalism certainly, and, I think I may say, mj^ father's 
also, would have made excellent Conservatism at the pres- 
ent day. But in those days the new principal of Alban 
Hall stood out in strong contrast with the intellectual 
attitude and habits of thought of Oxford. And this was 
the leading motive of my father's choice. 

I know not how the case may be now, but in those days 
it was* a decided disadvantage socially and academically 
to belong to any one of the "halls," instead of to a col- 
lege. But of all this side of Oxford life my father, who 
had been a New College man in the days when New Col- 
lege exercised its ancient privilege of presenting its mem- 
bers for their degree without submitting them for any ex- 
amination in the schools, knew nothing. In his day the 
New College man before the vice-chancellor for his degree, 
instead of using the formula prescribed for every other 
member of the university, to the effect that having satis- 
fied the examiners he begged his degree {2^eto gradwn), 
said, "Having satisfied my college, I demand my degree" 
(postulo gradum). This has long been voluntarily aban- 
doned by New College, which on the enactment of the 
new statute for examinations, of course, saw that the re- 
tention of it necessarily excluded them from "honors." 
But in the old day it had inevitably the effect of causing 
New College men to live very much in a world of their 
own. 

Alban Hall had been, previously to Whately's time, a 
sort of " refuge for the destitute " intellectually, or aca- 
demically ; as were for the most part the other halls at 
that period. This reproach Whately at once set himself 
to remove from Alban Hall, and had altogether removed 
by the time I joined the society. It would be difficult to 



134 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

say what general operating influence had brought togeth- 
er the score or so of members who then constituted that 
society. They were certainly not intellectually superior 
to the average undergraduate of the time. Neither were 
they in any wise inferior in general respectability. But 
there was no coliesion, no general prevailing character. 
We seemed like a collection of waifs thrown together by 
as many different sets of circumstances as there were in- 
dividuals. I suppose all had been brought there by some 
personal connection with, or respect for, either Dr. Whate- 
ly, or for Mr. Hinds, the excellent vice-principal, who 
subsequently became Bishop of Norwich. There was, I 
remember, a knot of some three or four West Indians, 
who formed some little exception to what I have said of a 
general absence of cohesion. 

The time which I spent under Dr. Whately's authority 
and tuition led me to form a very exalted opinion of his 
intellectual capacity, high principle, and lofty determina- 
tion to do what he deemed to be his duty. But I do not 
think that he was the right man in the right place. 

His daughter. Miss Jane Whately, in her excellent and 
most interesting life of the archbishop, published some 
twenty years ago, writes: 

" Teaching was, indeed, the occupation most peculiarly suited to his 
powers and tastes, lie had a remarkable faculty of drawing out the 
mind of the learner, by leading him step by step, and obliging him to 
think for himself. He used to say that he believed himself to be one of 
the few teachers who could train a young person of retentive memory for 
words, without spoiling him. The temptation to the student in such cases 
is to rehearse by rote the rules or facts he had learned, without exercis- 
ing his powers of thought ; while one whose powers of recollection were 
less perfect would be forced to reflect and consider what was likely to be 
written or said on such a point by the writer, and thus to learn more in- 
telligently and less mechanically. The cure for this tendency in young 
persons who learned quickly by rote he effected by asking them questions, 
substantially the same as those in the text-book, but which they must an- 
swer in their own words, making them draw conclusions from axioms 
already laid down. In this manner he was able successfully to teach mathe- 
matics to many who had been apparently unable to master the first prin- 
ciples, and often to ground them in the elements of Euclid, better than 
some mathematicians whose actual attainments were far beyond his own. 
Both in this branch and in logic, as in all other studies, he always com- 



AT OXFORD. 135 

menced analytically and ended synthetically; first drawing out the mind of 
the learner, by making him give the substance of the right answer, and 
then requiring the exact technical form of it in words." 

This must strike all, who remember Whately's teaching, 
as evidently true. But it in no wise leads me to modify 
the opinion above expressed as to his adaptation for the 
position in which I knew him. The style of teaching de- 
scribed by his biographer, if ever suitable at all for a col- 
lege lecture-room, could only be so in the case of a collec- 
tion of pupils far superior intellectually to those with 
whom (with one or two exceptions, notably that of Mr. 
Wall, whose subsequent career at Oxford did credit to his 
Alban Hall training) Dr. Whately had to deal. Miss 
Whately describes a teacher whose influence in tete-d-tete 
teaching over a clever pupil would be quite invaluable. 
But he was always firing far over the heads of his hearers 'y 
and I do not think that his method was adapted to driv- 
ing, pushing, hustling an idle and very backward and un- 
prepared collection of youths through their "little-go" 
and " pass," quod erat in votis. Most of this necessary 
driving fell to the share of Hinds, who was fitted for far 
higher work, but was patient, kind, laborious, and con- 
scientious to the utmost degree. 

Miss Whately's book, mainly by virtue of the great 
number of the archbishop's letters contained in it, suc- 
ceeds in giving a very just and vivid notion of her father's 
character and tone of mind. She is hardly justified, I 
think, by facts, in speaking of the " delicacy of his con- 
sideration for the feelings of others." A little circum- 
stance that I well remember scarcely seems to indicate the 
possession of any such quality. It was about the time 
when the then burning question of parliamentary reform 
was exercising the minds of all men. A large party of un- 
dergraduates were dining at Whately's table — such invi- 
tations were usually given by him in every term — and 
Mrs. Whately, at the head of the long table, was asking 
the young man who sat next her what was the general 
opinion in the hall on the Reform question, when Whate- 
ly, who at the bottom of the table had overheard her, 
called out, " Why don't you ask what the bedmakers 



136 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

think ?" I have little doubt that the opinion of the bed- 
makers might have been ascertained with an equal, or 
perhaps greater, degree of profit. But I cannot think 
that the principal showed much " delicacy of considera- 
tion " for the feelings of his guests. 

Perhaps a degree of roughness akin to this, though 
hardly altogether of the same sort, contributed to increase 
that strong feeling of dislike for Whately which, outside 
his own Oriel, was pretty generally felt in Oxford, and 
which was mainly caused by more serious objections to 
his political,, and in some degree religious, liberalism. 

I fear that I profited very little by his tuition at Alban 
Ilal], doubtless chiefly from my own fault and idleness. 
But other causes contributed also to the result. The 
classical lectures were such as I had left a long way be- 
hind me. No study on my part was necessary to hold my 
own in the lecture-room by the side of my fellows in the 
team. Yet, of course, it was easy for such a teacher as 
Whately to perceive that I w^as trusting to Winchester 
work rather than to his instruction. And naturally this 
did not please him. I think, too, that he had a prejudice 
against public schools in general, and that for some reason 
or other he disliked Winchester in particular. I remem- 
ber his saying to me once — though 1 totally forget on 
what occasion — " We don't want any New-College ways 
here, sir !" I told him that I feared I did not deserve the 
compliment of being supposed capable of bringing any 
such there. And the reply failed to mollify him. 

Those who are old enough to remember anything of the 
social aspects of Oxford at that day, and, indeed, any who 
have read the excellent biography of Archbishop Whately 
by his daughter, know that he was exceedingly unpopular 
among "the dons," his contemporaries. This was due 
partly to the opinions he held on matters social, political, 
and religious, partly to those which prejudiced minds far 
inferior to his own supposed him to hold, but partly also 
to his own personal ways and manners. I think I know, 
and indeed I think I knew when I was his pupil, enough 
of the fibre and calibre of his mind to feel sure that he 
was greatly the intellectual superior to most of those of 



AT OXFORD. 13^ 

similar position around him. And I suppose that the 
world in general has by this time come to the conclusion 
tliat in respect of most of those opinions, which were then 
most obnoxious to the world in which he lived, Whately 
was right and his adversaries wrong. But he was not the 
man to win acceptance for new ideas in any society. The 
temper of his mind was in a high degree autocratical. He 
was born to be a benevolent and beneficent despot. His 
daughter, speaking of the painful experiences that awaited 
him when he became Archbishop of Dublin, says that " op- 
j^osition was painful to his disposition." 

Doubtless the principal of Alban Hall, thoroughly con- 
genial to him as was at that time the social atmosphere of 
the common room of his own Oriel, would have felt him- 
self much out of his element in most of the common rooms 
of Oxford. I remember a dear old man. Dr. Johnson, of 
Magdalen, who was greatly beloved by his own society, 
and a universal favorite with all who knew him. He 
was a high, though not altogether dry, right divine man 
{divino rightly spelled, be it understood, and not with an 
" e," as in jure de vino), and used to maintain that the 
lineal descendants of the last Stuarts were still the right- 
ful sovereigns of England. Sometimes a knot of young- 
sters would cluster around him, with, " But now. Dr. 
Johnson, do you really and truly believe that the present 
Duke of Modena is your lawful sovereign?" "Well, 
boy," the doctor would say when thus pressed, " after din- 
ner I do.'''* 

This was not the sort of man whom Whately would 
have tolerated, for though full of wit, as I have said, he 
was utterly devoid of any tincture of humor. 

Those were the days when it used to be said that the 
rule at Magdalen respecting preferment tenable together 
with a fellowship, was, "Hold your tongue, and you may 
hold anything else." 

It was supposed, I remember, at that day that there 
was to a certain special degree an antagonism and dislike 
between him and Dr. Shuttleworth, the warden of New 
College. There was a story current to the effect that the 
brusquerie of the principal of Alban Hall v/as upon one 



138 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

occasion exhibited in an offensive manner in the drawing- 
room of the warden of New College, when not only men 
but ladies were present. Whately had a habit of sit- 
ting in all sorts of uncouth postures on his chair. He 
would balance himself, while nursing one leg over the 
knee of the other, on the two hind legs of his chair, or 
even on one of them, and was indulging in gymnastics of 
this sort when the leg of the chair suddenly snapped, and 
he, a large and heavy man, rolled on the floor. He was a 
man of far too much real pith and aplomb to be unneces- 
sarily disconcerted at such an accident. But the story 
ran that he manifested his disregard for it by simply toss- 
ing the offending and crippled chair into a corner, and 
taking another as he proceeded with what he was saying 
without one word of apology to his hostess. 

If it was true that there was any such special feeling of 
antagonism between Whately and Shuttle worth, it was a 
pity; for assuredly there were very few, if any, men among 
the heads of colleges of that day better calculated by 
power and originality of mind, and in many respects by 
liberality of thinking, to understand and foregather with 
Whately than the warden of New College. 

Shuttleworth was, and had the reputation of being, an 
especially witty man. And I consider Whately to have 
been the wittiest man I ever knew. But it is true that 
their wit was of a very different character. Whately was 
not a man fitted to shine in society, unless it were the so- 
ciety of those prepared by knowledge of and regard for 
him to recognize his undisputed right to be the acknowl- 
edged leader of it. Shuttleworth was, on the contrary, 
eminently calculated to contribute more than his share to 
the most brilliant social intercourse. He had, with abun- 
dance of solid sweetmeat at the bottom of the trifle, a 
sparkling store of that froth of wit which is most accepted 
as the readiest and pleasantest social small change. Whate- 
ly's wit was not of the kind which ever set any " table on 
a roar." It was of that higher and deeper kind, which 
consists in prompt perception, not of the superficial resem- 
blances in dissimilar things, but in the underlying resem- 
blances disclosed only to the eye capable of appreciating 



AT OXFORD. 139 

at a glance the essential qualities and cliaracteristics of 
the matter in hand. I have heard Whately deliciously 
witty at a logic or Euclid lecture. 

An admirable specimen of this highest description of wit 
is given — among dozens of others indeed — by his daugh- 
ter in her biography of him, which delighted me much 
when I read it, and which may be cited because it is very 
brilliant and may be given shortly. It will be Tound at 
the thirty-eighth page of the first volume of Miss Whate- 
ly's work. The archbishop, writing of the controversy 
respecting the observance of the Sabbath, says, "This is 
a case in which men impose on themselves by the fallacy 
of the thaumatrope. On one side are painted (to obviate 
the absurdity of a probable law) the plain, earnest, and re- 
peated injunctions to the Jews relative to their Sabbath ; 
on the other side (to obviate the consequence of our hav- 
ing to keep the Jewish Sabbath) Ave have the New Testa- 
ment allusions to the Christian assemblies on the first day 
of the week. By a repeated and rapid twirl these two im- 
ages are blended into one picture in the mind. But a steady 
view will show that they are on opposite sides of the card." 

I remember a favorite saying of Whately's to the effect 
that the difficulty of giving a good definition of anything 
increased in proportion to the commonness of the thing to 
be defined. And he would illustrate his dictum by saying 
"Define me a teacup !" A trial of the experiment will 
probably convince the experimenter of the correctness of 
Whately's proposition. 

Whether it may have been that any antagonism be- 
tween Whately and Shuttleworth caused the former to be 
prejudiced against Wiccamical things and men, or whether 
the relationship of the two feelings were vice versa, I can- 
not say. But I certainly thought, and think still, that 
I suffered in his estimation from the fact that I was a 
Wykehamist. In writing on educational matters in or 
about 1839 (page 79 of Miss Whately's first volume), 
Whately says : " To compare schools generally with col- 
leges generally may seem a vague inquiry, but take the 
most in repute of each — Eton, Westminster, Harrow, 
etc., V. Oriel, Brasenose, Balliol, Christchurch, etc., etc." 



140 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

ISTow, I cannot but feel that so singular an omission of 
Winchester from so short a list of the schools " most in 
repute," glaringly in contradiction as it was with all that 
the whole English world — even the non-academical world 
— knew to be the fact, could have been caused only by 
preconceived and unreasoning prejudice. Of course to 
me the utterance above quoted comes only as a confirma- 
tion of \^hat the personal observation of my undergradu- 
ate days led me to feel, for I knew nothing of it till I read 
Miss Whately's volumes published in 1886. 

Yet I do not doubt tbat I may have occasionally 
" rubbed Whately the Avrong way," as the phrase goes. 
He was, as I have said, a most autocratically minded man. 
And we Wykehamists, as the reader may have perceived 
from my Winchester reminiscences, were not accustomed 
to be ruled autocraticall3^ We lived under the empire, 
and I might almost say, in an atmosphere of law, as dis- 
tinguished from individual will. It was constantly in 
our minds and on our tongues, that the *' informator'''' or 
the " hostiarius " could or could not do this or that. We 
lived with the ever-present consciousness that the suprema 
lex was not what this master or the other master, or even 
the warden might say, save in so far as it coincided with 
the college statutes. And I doubt not that Whately per- 
ceived and understood the influence of this habit of mind 
in something or other that I might have said or done. 
It was probably something of the sort Avhich led to his 
telling me that he wanted no New- College manners at 
Alban Hall. 

My " Winchester manners," however, enabled me, I re- 
member, to understand him when some of his own flock 
could not. He would at a Euclid lecture say, "Take any 
straight line," scrawling, as he said the words, a line as 
far from straight as he could draw it, to the utter bewil- 
derment of some among his audience, who, I believe, 
really thought that the principal was a shocking bad 
draughtsman, wlnle the despised Wykehamist perfectly 
understood that his object was to show that the process 
of reasoning to be illustrated in no wise depended on ac- 
curacy of lines or angles. 



AT OXFORD. 141 

There is another passage in one of the letters published 
by his biographer which illustrates Whatelj^'s aversion 
to all Wiccamical men and things, and at the same time 
his utter ignorance of them. "It is commonly said at 
Oxford," he writes, "at least it used to be, that it was 
next to impossible to make a Wykehamist believe that any 
examination could be harder than that which the candi- 
dates for New College undergo." My reader has already 
been told in some degree what that examination was, 
and the nature of it. It was a real and serious examina- 
tion, whereas that of candidates for admission to Winches- 
ter College was a mere form ; and it was certainlj^ a 
searching examination into the thoroughness with which 
schoolboys had done their schoolboy work. But the sup- 
position that any New -College man ever imagined his 
examination in election chamber to be of equal difficulty 
with the subsequent work at the university, or with that in 
the schools for honors, is an absolute proof that the per- 
son so supposing never knew anything about them, or had 
come much into contact with them. 

I have said that Whately's reputation for a very pro- 
nounced Liberalism, certainly at that time unparalleled 
among his brother heads of houses at Oxford, had been 
my father's reason for placing me at Alban Hall. And 
all that reached the undergraduate world in connection 
with him was of a nature to lead the academic mind to 
regard him as a phenomenon of Radicalism. And it is cu- 
rious to recall such impressions, while reading at the pres- 
ent day such a passage as the following (" Life of Whate- 
ly," vol. i. p. 302). The archbishop is writing about the 
schemes then in agitation for the application of a portion 
of the revenues of the Irish Church to the purposes of 
national education. The italics in the following transcrip- 
tion are mine. 

" It is concluded, first, that in parishes where there is a 
very small, or no Protestant population, the revenues of 
the Church will be either wholly, or in part, as the case 
may be, transferred to the education board, as the incum- 
bents drop, their life-interests being reserved ; secondly, 
that in the event of an increase of the Protestant popula- 



142 WHAT I KEMEMBER. 

tion, such portion of the funds thus alienated as may be 
thought requisite shall be drawn from the education board, 
and restored to the original purpose ; thirdly, that in the 
event of a further diminution of the Protestants, a further 
portion shall be withdrawn from the Church, and applied 
to the purpose of general education. This last supposition 
is merely conjectural, but is so strictly the converse of the 
preceding, that every one at once concludes, and must 
conclude by parity of reasoning, that it must be contem- 
plated. Now it will not be supposed by any one, who 
knows much of the state of Ireland, that we contemplate 
as probable any such increase of the Protestant popula- 
tion as to call for the restoration of a considerable portion 
of the alienated funds. In a few places, perhaps, attempts 
may be made, I fear with disastrous results, by some zeal- 
ous Protestant landlords to increase, with this view, the 
proportion of Protestants on their estates ; but on the 
whole we neither hope nor fear any such result. What 
alarms us is, the holding out the principle of such a sys- 
tem as the apportioning the revenues of the Church and 
of the education board to the varying proportions of the 
Roman Catholic population to the Protestant; and again, 
the principle of making the funds for national education 
contingent upon the death of incumbents. The natural 
effect of the latter of these provisions must be to place 
the clergy so circumstanced in a most invidious, and ^>^ 
this country a onost dangerous situation. JSTo one lolio 
hnows anything of Ireland woidd like to reside here sur- 
rounded by his heirs, on whom his income was to devolve 
at his death. And such looidd he very tnuch the case with 
an incumbent, who was regarded as standing beticeen the 
nation and the national benefit^ viz., of provision for the 
education of their children. Then in respect of the other 
point, every Protestant who might come to settle, or remain 
settled in any parish, woidd be regarded as tending towards 
the loitJidrawing or withholding, as the case might be, of 
the funds of the national education, and diverting them 
to the use of cm heretical establishment. 

" The most harassing persecutions, the most ferocious 
outrages, the most systematic murders, woidd in conse- 



AT OXFORD. 143 

qiieoice he increased fourfold. Bitter as religious animosi- 
ties have hitherto been in this loretched country, it loould 
be to 7iiost persons astonishiyig that they coidd he so much 
augme7itedy as I have no douht they would he, hy this fatal 
experiment. When instead of mere vague jealousy, revenge 
and party spirit, to prompt to crime and violence, there-was 
also held out a distinct pecuniary 7iational benefit in the 
extermination of Protestants, it icoidd he in fact a price set 
on their heads, and they woidd he hunted doimi like icolves. 
. . . Better, far better, would it be to confiscate at once 
and forever all the endowments held by the clergy, and 
leave them to be supported by voluntary contribution, or 
by manual labor. However impoverished, they and their 
congregations woidd at least have security for their lives.^^ 
" To seek to pacify Ireland,'''' he writes a little further 
on, " by compliance and favor shovm to its disturbers woidd 
be even loorse than the superstitious procedure of our fore- 
fathers loith their weapon salve, icho left the loound to itself 
and applied their unguents to the sword lohich had inflicted 

it:' 

Writing to his friend Senior on Parliamentary Reform, 
he says that a system of ten-pound qualification " could 
not last, but must go on to universal suffrage." His own 
plan would be universal suffrage with a plurality of votes 
to owners of property in proportion to the amount of it, 
and a system of election by degrees — parishes, e. g., to elect 
an elector. " Some may," he concludes, " perhaps think 
at the first glance that my reform is very democratical. 
I think that a more attentive mind will show that it is 
calculated to prevent in the most effectual way the inroads 
of excessive democracy. I can at least say that no one 
can dread more than myself a democratical government, 
chiefly because I am convinced it is the more warlike." 

Such were the utterances of an advanced Liberal in the 
first half of this century. Was I far wrong in saying 
that Whately's Liberalism would have made very good 
modern Conservatism? 

There was a story current, I remember, not long after 
Whately's acceptance of the see of Dublin, which, as I 
do not think it has been told in print, and as it is very 



144 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

significant, I may tell here — observing that all I know is, 
that the story loas current. 

It was at the time when one of the great transatlantic 
passenger ships had been destroyed by fire with the loss 
of many lives. One of those saved was a Dublin clergy- 
man of the Low-Church school of divinity, who, returning 
to Dublin, and finding himself the hero of many tea-tables, 
was wont to moralize down the great event of his life after 
the fashion of those who will have it, quand meme^ that 
the tower of Siloam did fall because of the wickedness of 
those whom it crushed. And one da}^, at one of those 
levees of which Miss Whately speaks, he was improving 
his usual theme, the centre of a knot gathered around him, 
when the archbishop strolled up to the group, according 

to his fashion, and having heard, said : " Yes, truly Mr. , 

a most remarkable experience ! But I think I can cap it" 
(a faVorite phrase of Whately's, who was fond of the 
amusement of capping verses). " It is little more than a 
month ago that I crossed from Holyhead to Kingston, and 
by God's mercy the vessel never caught fire at all .^" 

I cannot bring to an end my reminiscences relating to 
so remarkable a man as Whately without relating a story, 
which he told me, as having been told him by his old and 
highly valued friend and protege^ Blanco White, once so 
well known a figure among all the Oriel set of that period. 
The story was introduced, I remember, as an illustration 
of a favorite (and doubtless correct) theory of Whately's 
to the effect that the popular English "hocus pocus," as 
applied to any sleight-of-hand deception, is simply a de- 
risory corruption of the " hoe est corpus " used in the Ro- 
mish liturgical formula for the consecration of the eucha- 
ristic elements. It may be that the story in question has 
been told in print before now, but I have never met with it. 

"A priest," said Blanco White, "was for some heinous 
crime condemned to capital punishment at Seville. But 
of course before he could be delivered over to the secular 
arm for the execution of the sentence, a ceremonial degra- 
dation from his sacerdotal character had to be performed. 
And this was to be done at the place appointed for his 
execution immediately before that was proceeded to ; and 



AT OXFORD. 145 

for the greater efficacy of the terrible example to be in- 
culcated on the people, the market-day at Seville had been 
chosen for the purpose. 

" The criminal priest accordingly, as he was led to the 
place of execution, was still to all effects and purposes a 
priest, with all the tremendous powers inherent in that 
character, of which nothing save formal ecclesiastical deg- 
radation could deprive him. Now it so happened, or per- 
haps was purposely arranged, that the way from the prison 
to the place of execution lay through the market-place, 
where all the provisions of all sorts for the Sevillians for 
that day were exposed. And as the yet undegraded, and 
it must be feared unrepentant, priest passed among all the 
various displays of food thus spread out before him, the 
devil, seizing an opportunity rarely to be matched, entered 
into the unhappy priest's mind, and prompted him to deal 
one last malicious and sacrilegious blow at the population 
about to witness his miserable end. Suddenly, in the 
mid-market, he stretched out his arms, and pronounced 
with a loud voice the uncancellable sacramental words, 
' Hoc EST CORPUS !' And all the contents of that vast 
market were instantaneously transubstantiated ! All the 
food in Seville was forthwith unavailable for any baser 
than eucharistic purposes, and Seville had to observe the 
vindictive priest's last day on earth as a very rigorous fast- 
day!" 

Whether Blanco White told this as absolutely having 
occurred within his own knowledge, or only as a Seville 
legend, 1 do not know, but in any case the story is a good 
one. 

I have said that when I entered Alban Hall I was not 
in a position to obtain much profit from the classical lec- 
tures, the main object of which was to drive those who 
attended them through the examination for the "little 
go." I was better able to pass that examination when I 
first went to Oxford than when the time came for my 
doing so. But the examination in question required that 
the candidate for passing should take up either logic or 
Euclid (four books only, as I remember), and of neither 
of these did I know anything. And there the Alban Hall 
1 



146 WHAT I KEMEMBER. 

lectures profited me. The admirably lucid logic lectures 
of both the principal and vice-principal, to my surprise, 
soon rendered the rationale of the science perfectly com- 
prehensible to me, and even Aldrich became interesting. 
I selected logic for my '' little go," and Whately made 
me abundantly able to satisfy the examiners. 

But, as I said a few pages back, my membership of Al- 
ban Kail was, for more reasons than those which have 
been already given, disastrous to me, and the disaster 
came about in this wise. 

Whately w^as, rightly and judiciously enough, very par- 
ticular in requiring that his men should return after vaca- 
tion punctually on the day appointed for meeting. Now, 
unfortunately, my father on one occasion detained me un- 
til the following day. What the cause may have been 
I entirely forget, but remember perfectly w^ell that it was 
in no way connected with any plans or wishes of mine. I 
returned a day late, and the penalty which Whately had 
enacted for this laches was the payment of a certain sum 
to his servant — the porter, buttery -man, and factotum 
at the hall. What the amount of this penalty was, and 
wdiether it were large or small, I have entirely forgotten, 
if I ever knew, for the whole matter in dispute passed be- 
tween my father and Whately. The former maintained, 
whether rightly or wrongly 1 have not the means of know- 
ing, that the latter acted ultra vires in making any such 
motu projorio edict. There was no likelihood that Whate- 
ly would yield in the matter — indeed it Avould have been 
out of the question that he should have done so. My fa- 
ther had quite as little of yielding in his nature, and kicked 
against the pricks determinedly. The result was that I 
was one morning summoned to the presence of the princi- 
pal, and told to take my name off the books ! My father 
was at first disposed to forbid me to do so, but the result of 
refusal would have been expulsion, w^hich would have en- 
tailed ruinous consequences, much vv'orse than the already 
sufficiently injurious results of being compelled to quit the 
hall. I should immediately have lost the two valuable 
exhibitions which I held from Winchester, besides incur- 
ring the very damning stigma that through life attaches 



AT OXFORD. 147 

to a man wLo lias been expelled. Eventually I took my 
name oif the books under menace of expulsion if I did not. 

The case attracted a good deal of attention in the uni- 
versity at the time, and I think the general feeling among 
the heads of colleges was that Whately was wrong. At 
all events, without going into the question as between my 
father and him, it was emphatically a case of Delirant 
reges, plectuntur Achivi. From beginning to end the 
whole matter passed over my head. I had neither fault 
nor option in the matter. And Whately knew perfectly 
well how very great was the injury he was inflicting on 
me. It was nearly impossible to get admission, under the 
circumstances, to any college. The great majority of 
them could not possibly, even if any one of them had 
wished to do so, receive a man at a minute's notice, from 
absolute want of room, and the wrong that Avould have 
been done to others who were waiting for admission. But 
it would have been entirely contrary to the rules and prac- 
tice of almost, if not quite, every one of them to receive 
a man compelled to leave another college, even with a 
formal bene decessit. And the interval of a term (or even 
of a day, I take it in strictness) would have necessarily in- 
volved the forfeiture of my exhibitions. AH which Whate- 
ly also knew ; but all of which, as he might have fairly 
answered, my father knew also ! 

Eventually I was received at Magdalen Hall, which has 
since that day become Hertford College, of which Dr. 
Macbride was then principal. Dr. Macbride was one of 
the kindliest and best men in the world, and he was one of 
those who most strongly felt that I was being very hardly 
used. It was with difficulty that it could be managed 
that I should be received into his society at a day's notice ; 
but, looking to the urgency as well as to the other circum- 
stances of the case, it loas managed somehow, and I be- 
came a member of Magdalen Hall. 

But the mischief done to my university career was fatal ! 
Magdalen Hall was at that time a general refuge for the 
destitute ! Dr. Macbride, well known for his active be- 
nevolence and beneficence in various spheres of well-doing 
on the outside of his academical character, was hardly well 



148 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

adapted for the position lie held in the university. Any- 
thing of the nature of punishment seemed impossible to 
the gentleness of his character; and I fancy he held theo- 
retically that it was desirable that a place such as his hall 
should exist in the university to serve as a refuge for those 
who, without being black sheep, were, for a variety of rea- 
sons, pushed aside from the beaten tracks of the academi- 
cal career. 

I made very little acquaintance with the men there ; but 
I do not think there were many, though no doubt some, 
black sheep among them. There was another hall in the 
university at that time famous for the " fastness " of its 
inmates. But the " shadiness " of Masfdalen Hall was of 

o 

a different kind. There were many middle-aged men 
there — ci-deimiit officers in the army, who had quitted 
their profession w^ith the intention of entering the Church ; 
schoolmasters, who, having begun their career in some ca- 
pacity which did not require a degree, were at a later day 
anxious to obtain one in order to better themselves. In 
general, the object of all there was not education or any 
other object save simply a degree needed for some social 
or economical purpose. " Honors " were, of course, about 
as much aspired to as bishoprics ! And it was the busi- 
ness of Mr. Jacobson — the gentle, kindly, patient, and 
long-suffering vice - principal — to secure " a pass " for as 
many of his heterogeneous flock as possible. 

Of discipline there could hardly be said to have been 
any. AYhen other men of the kick-over-the-traces sort 
told their stories of various surreptitious means of enter- 
ing college at all sorts of hours, Magdalen Hall men used 
to say that their plan was to ring at the gate and have it 
opened for them ! I remember upon one occasion, when I 
had shown myself in chapel only on the Sunday morning 
during an entire week, the vice-principal mildly remarked, 
" You have reduced it to a minimum, Mr. Trollope !" I 
suppose that in classical attainments I was much superior 
to any man in the place. There were many, it is true, 
.who were never seen at lecture at all — not, probably, 
from idleness, but because they were obtaining from a 
private tutor a course of cramming more desperately en- 



AT OXFORD. 149 

ergetic than even kindly, patient Jacobson's elementary 
lectures could supply. For me the res angusta domi for- 
bade all idea of employing a private tutor. But as for a 
"pass" degree, I was just as capable of taking it when I 
left Winchester (with the exception of logic, and what 
was called " divinity ") as when I did take it ; and as re- 
gards logic, I was sufficiently capable when I left Whate- 
ly's hands. If my *' divinity " examination had consisted 
of as searching an inquiry into my knowledge of the con- 
tents of the Old Testament as was required from many 
men, I should infallibly have been " plucked." But, as it 
chanced, it consisted solely of construing two verses of 
the New Testament. I remember that the examiner had 
been hammering away at the man next before me for an 
inordinate time, and as I construed my Greek Testament 
glibly enough he was glad to make up for lost time. 

As for Jacobson's lectures, they were absolutely useless 
to me, and he never in the slightest degree pressed me to 
attend them. I remember, however, that he desired an 
interview with me on the morning I w^as to go into the 
schools, for the purpose of testing in some degree the 
probability of my passing. And it is a singular circum- 
stance that — Horace having been one of the books I was 
taking up — he put me on, as a trial, at the very passage 
selected for the same purpose by the examiner in the 
schools an hour or two later ! Jacobson found me able 
enough to deal with the passage he selected. But had it 
been otherwise he would have secured my passing — as far 
as Horace was concerned — despite any amount of igno- 
rance of the author, if only I had the wit to remember 
his cramming for an hour or two. 

Eventually, though I had in no wise aimed at anything 
of the sort, a third class was awarded to me — wholly, as 
I was given to understand, on account of my Latin writ- 
ing. The examiners had given — hardly judiciously — so 
stiff a passage from one of the homilies to be translated 
into Latin that the majority of the men could not under- 
stand the English; which, to a certain extent, interfered 
with their translation of it into another language. They 
were "pass men"! With the candidates for honors it 



150 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

would doubtless have been otherwise. But I did under- 
stand it, and I took it into my head to translate it twice — 
once into Ciceronian and once into Sallustian Latin. And 
this was rewarded by a third class. YaUat quantum ! 

And thus ended my academical career in a comparative 
failure, the conclusion of which seemed to have been rather 
a foregone one. I had no private tutor, and, with the ex- 
ception of Whately's logic lectures, no college tuition of 
any value to me at all. And in addition to all this I was 
pulled up by the roots and transplanted in the middle of 
my career. No doubt I was idle, and might have done 
better. I read a good deal, but it was what I chose to 
read, and not what I ought to have read with a view to 
the schools. I had no very unacademical pursuits save 
one. I used occasionally to hire with a friend a gig with 
a fast horse, drive out to Witney, dine there, wait till the 
up-mail came through, and tlien run back to Oxford, tor- 
menting the coachman and his team by continually run- 
ning by him, letting him pass me, and then da capo. But 
these escapades were rare. 

A great deal more wine, or what was supposed to be 
such, was drunk at Oxford in those days than was desira- 
ble, or than, as I take it, is the case now. But I never 
was much of a wine-drinker. I think I have been drunk 
twice in my life, but not oftener. Very little credit, how- 
ever, is due to me for my moderation, from the fact, which 
I do not think I ever met with in the case of any other 
individual, that the headache which to most others comes 
the next morning as the penalty of excess, always used to 
come to me, if I at all exceeded, seance teoiante, and al- 
most immediately. Nor did wine ever pleasurably raise 
my spirits, nor did my palate care for it. To the present 
day, as a simple question of goitrmaoidise, I would rather 
drink a glass of lemonade than any champagne that was 
ever grown — lemonade, by-the-bye, not such liquid as goes 
by that name in this country, but lemonade made with 
lemons fresh and fragrant from the tree. Under these 
circumstances I can make small claim to any moral virtue 
for my sobriety. 

I used to be a good deal upon the water, either alone or 



AT OXFORD. 151 

accompanied by a single friend with a pair of sculls. But 
I was a great walker, and cultivated in those days, and, 
indeed, during most of the many years that have passed 
since, a considerable turn of speed. In those days Captain 
Barclay was called the champion pedestrian of England, 
and had walked six miles within the hour. I hear people 
talk of eight and even nine miles having been done within 
the hour, but I absolutely refuse to believe the statement. 
I dare say that the ground may have been covered, but 
not at a fair vKilh — at what used to be called, and perhaps 
is called still, a toe-and-heel walk, i. c, a walk in perform- 
ing which one foot must touch the ground before the 
other leaves it. I tried very hard to match Captain Bar- 
clay's feat, but my utmost endeavors never achieved more 
than five miles and three quarters — I could never do more ; 
and, of course, that last quarter of a mile just made all the 
difference between a first-rate and a second-rate walker. 
The five and three quarters I have often done on the Ab- 
ingdon Road, milestone to milestone. And at the present 
day I should be happy to Avalk a match with any gentle- 
man born in 1810. 

The longest day's walk I ever did was forty-seven miles, 
but I carried a very heavy knapsack, making, I take it, 
that distance fully equal to sixty miles without one. How 
well I remember walking, one fair, frosty morning, from 
Winchester to Alresford, seven miles, before breakfast. I 
asked at the inn at which I breakfasted for cold meat. 
They brought me an uncut loin of small Southdown mut- 
ton, of which I ate the whole. And I can sec now the 
glance of that waiter's eye, accusing me, as plainly as if 
he had spoken the w^ords, of pocketing his master's provi- 
sions ! Eheu! fugaceSj Posthume, PostJiunie, lahuntur 
a7ini, and I never shall again eat a loin of mutton at one 
sitting ! partly, though, because scientific breeding has ex- 
terminated the good old Southdown mutton. 

One other reminiscence occurs to me in connection with 
the subject of walking. While I was living with my par- 
ents at Harrow, my mother's brother, Mr. Henry Milton, 
was living with his family at Fulham. And one Sunday 
mornincf I v/alked from Harrow to Fulham before break- 



152 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

fast on a visit to him. As may be supposed, I was abun- 
dantly ready to do ample justice to tlie very solid and varied 
breakfast placed before me, but, after having done so, was 
hardly equally ready to accompany my uncle's family to 
Fulham Church to hear the Bishop of London preach. 
This, however, it behooved me to do, not without great 
misgiving as to the effect that the bishop's sermon might 
have on me after my twelve miles' walk and very copious 
breakfast — especially as my uncle's pew was exactly in 
front and in the vicinity of the pulpit ! So, minded to do 
my best under the difficult circumstances, I stood up dur- 
ing the sermon. All in vain ! Nature too peremptorily 
bade me sleep. I slept, with the result of executing an 
uninterrupted series of profound bows to the preacher, the 
suddenness and jerky nature of which evidently betokened 
the entirety of my agreement with his arguments. I feared 
the reproaches, which I doubted not awaited me on my 
way home. But my uncle contented himself with saying, 
" When you go to sleep during a sermon, Tom, never stand 
up to do it !" 

To sum up the story of my certainly unsuccessful but 
not entirely profitless life at Oxford, I may say that I was 
not altogether an idle man, nor ever in any degree a sharer 
in any of the "faster" phases of academical life. I was 
always a reader. But what academical good could come 
to a man who was reading " The Diversions of Purley," 
or Plot's " Oxfordshire," or Burton's " Anatomy of Melan- 
choly," or Brown's " Vulgar Errors," when he ought to have 
been reading Aristotle's " Ethics " ? Among other reminis- 
cences of the sort, my diary accuses me, for instance, for 
having taken from the library of Magdalen Hall (and read !) 
a volume called " Gaffarel's Curiosities." I suppose no other 
living man has read it ! The work contains among other 
" curiosities," a chapter " of incredible nonsense," as my 
diary calls it, on the construction and proper use of Talis- 
mans ! 

Alas, no "honors" were granted for proficiency in such 
studies ! 



CHAPTER X-. 

OLD DIARIES. 

Befoee quitting a phase of my life which many, if not 
most, old men are wont to look back on as their happiest 
time, but which I, by so considering, should grievously 
wrong many a subsequent period, I may string together 
at random a few notes from my diaries, which may seem 
to contribute some touch or trait to the story of the way 
we lived sixty years since. 

The way men lived in Germany at that date I find given 
in a letter from the Baron de Zandt to my mother, as fol- 
lows : " In many parts of Germany," says the baron, who, 
as I very well remember, understood what good living 
was, " a man may be boarded and lodged comfortably for 
£26 a year. If he prefers economy to comfort, it might 
be done for considerably less." 

From the journal of a walking tour in South Devon, 
performed in the year 1831, 1 take the well-nigh incredible 
statement, that no tobacconist ex professo could at that 
date be found in Plymouth ! *' I succeeded after some 
research," says tbe diary, "in getting some tolerable to- 
bacco from a chjmiist." Doubtless plenty of tobacco was 
to be had, if I had known where to look for it — at chan- 
dlers' shops and taverns. But I have no doubt that the 
statement in the fifty-five-year-old " text " is correct. No 
tobacconist's shop was then to be found in Plj^nouth. 

In July, 1832, I was walking in Wales, and reaching 
Caermarthen in assize time (where Judge Alderson, as is 
recorded, was trying prisoners on the Crown side), found 
much difliculty in getting any accommodation for bed or 
even board. But at length a commercial gentleman at 
the Ivy Bush, the principal inn, " entering into conversa- 
tion in a patronizing sort of way, told me it was a Aerror 
to suppose that commercial men were ^adverse to gentle- 



154 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

men making use of the commercial room, provided tBey 
^oas gentlemen. For himself, he was always most 'appy 
to associate with gentlemen ;" and, in fine, invited me to 
join their table, which I did at two o'clock. One of the 
assembled party — there were some fifteen or sixteen of 
them — was formally named president for the day, and 
took the head of the table. We were excruciatingly gen- 
teel. I, in my ignorance, asked for beer, but was with 
much politeness informed that malt liquor was not used 
at their table. Every man was expected to consume a 
pint of most atrocious sherry at 5s. 6c?., which I suppose 
compensated the landlord for the wonderfully small price 
of the dinner. A dinner of three courses, consisting of 
salmon, chicken, venison, three or four made dishes, and 
pastry, was put before us. I was surprised at the gor- 
geousness of this feast, and began to have alarming antici- 
pations of the amari aliquid which must follow. But I 
was assured that this was the ordinary every-day fare of 
the "commercial gentlemen," and the bill for the repast 
was two shillings ! My diary records that the conversa- 
tion at table in no wise savored of trade in any of its 
branches. Shakespeare and Walter Scott were descanted 
on in turn, and one dapper little man, who travelled in 
cutlery, averred that Sir Walter had on one occasion been 
exceedingly polite to him, and he should always say to 
the end of his life that he was a gentleman. 

At Dolgelly I Avas struck by the practice prevailing 
there of tolling, after the ringing of the curfew, a number 
of strokes on the biggest bell equal to the number of the 
days which had elapsed of the current month. I wonder 
whether they do so still ? 

I went out of my way, I find, in the course of the same 
journey, in order to go from Liverpool to Manchester by 
the new railway, which to me, as to thousands of others, 
was an object of infinite curiosity and interest. My diary 
notes that there were fifteen carriages attached to the en- 
gine, each carrying twelve passengers. Two of these were 
first-class, and the fare for the journey to Manchester in 
them was 5s. ; in the others the fare was 35. Qd. The train 
I was to travel by was called a second-class train. The 



OLD DIARIES. 155 

first-class trains carried no second-class passengers, and 
did the journey of fifty-two miles in one hour and a half. 
They stopped only once on the way. The second-class 
trains stopped frequently, and were two hours on the 
road. I estimated the speed at something over twenty- 
five miles an hour, and remark in my diary that "that im- 
mense rapidity was manifested to the senses only by look- 
ing at the objects passed." 

At Manchester I find myself to have been much scan- 
dalized at a scene which I witnessed in the Collegiate 
Church there. There were seventeen couples to be mar- 
ried, and they -were all married at once, the only part of 
the service individually performed being the " I take thee," 
etc., etc. I perfectly well remember at this distance of 
time the bustling about of the clerk among them to insure 
that every male should be coupled to the right female. 
" After this wholesale coupling had been completed," says 
my diary, " the daily service was begun, and was performed 
in a more indecent and slovenly way than I ever before wit- 
nessed, which is saying a great deal ! While the Psalms 
were being sung the priest, as having nothing to do, walked 
out, and returned just in time to read the Lessons." Such 
were the manners and habits of 1832. 

A few weeks later I find an entry to the effect that, 
"'while my father was reading 'Grandison' to us in the 
evening I got M. Hervieu (the artist who did the illustra- 
tions for my mother's ' Domestic Manners of the Ameri- 
cans ' and other books, and who chanced to be passing the 
evening with us en famille) to draw m.e a caricature illus- 
trating the following passage of Beattie's "Minstrel:" 

"And yet young Edwin was no vulgar boy ; 
Deep thought would often fix his youthful eye. 
Dainties he heeded not, nor gaud, nor toy, 
Save one short pipe P^ 

I possess this remarkable work of art to the present 
day ! 

At another page I stumble on the record of a conversa- 
tion with the sexton of Leatherhead, whom, in one of my 
rambles, I found digging a grave in the churchyard there. 



156 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

Three shillings, I learned, was the price of a grave of the 
ordinary depth of five feet. Those, however, who could 
afford the luxury of lying deeper paid a shilling a foot 
more. 

One more note from the diaries of those days I will 
venture to give, because it may be taken as a paralipo- 
menon to that "Autobiography" of my brother Avhich 
the world was kindly pleased to take some interest in : 

" Went to town yesterday [from Harrow], and among 
other commissions bought a couple of single-sticks with 
strong basket handles. Anthony much approves of them, 
and this morning we had a bout wdth them. One of the 
sticks bought yesterday soon broke, and we supplied its 
place by a tremendous blackthorn. Neither of us left the 
arena without a fair share of rather severe wales ; but 
Anthony is far my superior in quickness and adroitness, 
and perhaps in bearing j^ain too. I fear he is likely to re- 
main so in the first two, but in the third I am determined 
he shall not." 

Thus says the yellow fifty-seven-year-old page I 

And I have literally thousands of such pages ; volumi- 
nous records — among other matters — of walking excursions 
in the home counties, in Devon, in Wales, in Gloucester- 
shire, and on the banks of the Severn and Wye, not a page 
of which fails to bear its testimony to the curiously changed 
circumstances under which a pedestrian would now under- 
take such wanderings. I find among other jottings — 
deemed memorabilia at the time — that I carried a knap- 
sack weighing twenty-eight pounds over the top of Plinlim- 
mon, because I considered seven and sixpence demanded 
by the guide for accompanying me excessive. 

But ohe/ jam satis. I will inflict no more upon the 
patient reader — the impatient will have skij^ped much of 
what I have already given him. 

Alas ! the amari aliquid of these old records is the un- 
blushing chronicle of hitentions, enough to have paved all 
Acheron with a durability unachieved by any highway 
board ! The only comfort for diarists so imprudently 
candid as to record such aspirations, and so yet more im- 
prudent as to read them half a century after the penning 



OLD DIARIES. I57 

of them, is the consideration that au bout des comptes the 
question is, not what one has done, but what one has be- 
come. If one could flatter one's self that one has the mens 
Sana in corpore sano at seventy-seven years, one might 
accept and condone the past without too much regret ; and 
at all events it is something to have undeniably brought 
the latter to its seventy-eighth year. 



CHAPTER XI. 

OLD DiAEiES — (continued). 

I CAME down from Oxford to find my mother and my 
two sisters returned from America, and living in that 
Harrow Weald farmhouse which my brother Anthony, in 
his "Autobiography," has described, I think, too much en 
noir. It had once been a very good house, probably the 
residence of the owner of the small farm on which it was 
situated. It certainly was no longer a very good house, 
but it was not "tumble-down," as Anthony calls it, and 
was indeed a much better house than it would have been 
if its original destination had been that of merely a farm- 
house. But it and "all that it inherited" was assuredly 
shabby enough, and had been forlorn enough, as I had 
known it in my vacations, when inhabited only by my 
father, my brother Anthony, and myself. 

But my mother was one of those people Avho carry sun- 
shine with them. The place did not seem the same. 
The old house, whatever else it may have been, was roomy ; 
and a very short time elapsed before my mother had got 
round her one or two nice girl guests to help her in 
brightening it. 

I may mention here a singular circumstance which fur- 
nished me with means of estimating my mother's character 
in a phase of her life which rarely comes within the pur- 
view of a son. Some years ago, not many years I think 
after my mother's death, an anonymous stranger sent my 
brother Anthony a packet of old letters written by my 
mother to my father shortly before and shortly after their 
marriage. He never was able to ascertain who his benevo- 
lent correspondent was, nor how the papers in question 
came into his possession. There they are, carefully tied up 
in a neat packet, most of them undated by her, but care- 
fully docketed with the date by my father's hand. The 



OLD DIARIES. I59 

handwriting, not spoiled as it afterwards became by writ- 
ing over a liimdred volumes, is a very elegant one. 

There is a singularly old-world flavor about them. 
There is a staid moderation in their tone, which a reader 
of the present day, fresh from the perusal of similar litera- 
ture, as supplied by Mr. Mudie, would probably call cold- 
ness. In the few letters which precede the marriage there 
are no warm assurances of affection. After marriage the 
language becomes more warm. I am tempted to trans- 
cribe a few passages that the girls of the period may see 
how their great-grandmothers did these things. 

"It does not require three weeks' consideration, Mr. 
Trollope " — thus begins the first letter, undated, but dock- 
eted by my father, " F. M., undated, received 2d Nov., 
1808 " — "to enable me to tell you that the letter you left 
with me last night was most flattering and gratifying to 
me. I value your good opinion too highly not to feel that 
the generous proof you have given me of it must forever, 
and in any event, be remembered by me with pride and 
gratitude. But I fear you are not sufiiciently aware that 
your choice, so flattering to me, is for yourself a very im- 
prudent one." And then follows a business-like statement 
of possessions and prospects, which the writer fears fall 
much short of what her suitor might reasonably expect. 

But none of my father's faults tended in the slightest 
degree to lead him to marry a millionaire, whom he cared 
less for, in preference to a girl without a sixpence, whom 
he loved better. 

" In an affair of this kind," the letter I have cited goes 
on to say, "I do not think it any disadvantage to either 
party that some time should elapse between the first con- 
templation and final decision of it. It gives each an op- 
portunity of becoming acquainted with the other's opinion 
on many important points, which could not be canvassed 
before it was thought of, and which it would be useless to 
discuss after it was settled." 

Could Mrs. Chapone have exp>ressed herself better ? 
I find in another letter, dated (by my father) 6th De- 
cember, 1808, the foil owning George-the-Thirdian passage: 
" The most disagreeable of created beings, Col. by 



160 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

■ name, by profession Sir 's led captain, is, while I am 

writing, talking in an animated strain of eloquence to Mrs. 
Milton " (my grandfather the vicar's second wife and the 
writer's stepmother), "frequently seasoning his discourse 
with the polished phrase, ' Blood and thunder, ma'am !' so 
if I happen to swear a little before I conclude, be so good 
as to believe that I am accidentally writing down what he 
is saying. . . . Poor, dear, innocent Dr. Nott ! His sim- 
plicity is quite pathetic ! I am reall}^ afraid that he will 
be taking twopence instead of two pounds from his par- 
ishioners, merely because he does not know the difference 
between them. I cannot help feeling a tender interest for 
such lamblike innocence of the ways of this wicked world. 
I dare say the night I saw him at the opera, he thought 
he was 07ily " (note the distinction) " at the play, nay, per- 
haps believed they were performing an oratorio." 

In one letter of the 9th of April, 1809, I find a mention 
of " a frank " sent by Mr Mathias with a translation by 
him into Italian of the "Echo Song" in Comus, of which 
the writer says that it is "elegantly done, but is not 
Milton." 

In another, of the 18th of May, 1809 — the last before 
the marriage took place — I find the following, which may 
interest some people. *'I wish you could be here to-mor- 
row," she writes, "we are going to see the prisoners of 
war at Odiam (near Reading) perform one of Moliere's 
plays. Two years ago we attended several of them, and 
I never enjoyed anything more." 

More than a score of these faded eighty-year-old letters 
are before me ; and I might, perhaps, have gleaned from 
them some other little touches illustrative of men and 
manners when George the Third was king, but were I to 
yield to all the temptations of the sort that beset the path 
on which I am travelling, I should try my readers' patience 
beyond all hope of forgiveness. 

My mother had brought home with her the MS. of a 
couple of volumes on America; and the principal business 
on hand when I came home from Oxford was the finding 
a publisher for these. In this quest she was zealously and 
very energetically assisted by Captain Basil Hall, himself 



OLD DIARIES. 



161 



the author of a work on America, and sundry other books, 
which at that time had made a considerable reputation, 
Basil Hall's book on America did not take a favorable 
view of the Americans or their institutions ; and it had 
been mercilessly attacked and accused of misrepresenta- 
tion by all the critics of the Liberal party. For Hall's 
book, and everything else concerning America, was in 
those days looked at from a political-party point of view. 
America and the Americans were understood to be anti- 
e very thing that was dear to Conservatives. They were 
accordingly the pets of the Whigs (Radicals and Radical- 
ism had not yet emerged into the ken of respectable folk, 
either Whig or Tory), and Hall's book had been abused 
accordingly. He was very sore about the accusations of 
untruthfulness, and was delighted with a book which sup- 
ported his assertions and his views. How my mother 
came to be introduced to him, and how it came to pass 
that the MS. of her work was shown to him, I do not re- 
member, but the result was that he was zealously eager 
for the publication of it. The title, if I recollect rightly, 
was proposed by him. "The Domestic Manners of the 
Americans " was published, and made an immediate and 
great success. It was emphatically the book of the season, 
was talked of everywhere, and read by all sorts and con- 
ditions of men and w^omen. It was highly praised by all 
the Conservative organs of the press, and vehemently 
abused by all those of the opposite party. Edition after 
edition was sold, and the pecuniary results were large 
enough to avert from the family of the successful author- 
ess the results of her husband's ruined fortunes. 

The Americans were made very angry by this account 
of their "domestic manners" — very naturally, but not 
very wisely. Of course, it was asserted that many of the 
statements made were false and many of the descriptions 
caricatured. Nothing in the book from beginning to end 
was false ; nothing of minutest detail which was asserted 
to have been seen had not been seen; nor was anything 
intentionally caricatured or exaggerated for the sake of 
enhancing literary effect. But the tone of the book was 
unfriendly, and was throughout the result of offended 



162 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

taste rather than of well-weighed opinion. It was full of 
universal conclusions drawn from particular premises ; 
and no sufficient weight, or rather no weight at all, was 
allowed to the fact that the observations on which the re- 
corded judgments were founded had been gathered almost 
entirely in what was then the Far West, and represented 
the " domestic manners " of the Atlantic States hardly at 
all. Unquestionably the book was a very clever one, and 
written with infinite verve and brightness. But — save for 
the fact that censure and satire are always more amusing 
than the reverse — an equally clever and equally truthful 
book might have been written in a diametrically opposite 
spirit. 

No doubt the markedly favorable reception of the book 
was what mainly irritated our American cousins. But they 
certainly were angry far beyond what the importance of 
the matter would seem to have justified. I remember that 
Colley Grattan, whose fame as the author of " Highways 
and Byways" was then at its zenith, in writing to me from 
Boston, where he resided for many years as British consul, 
inviting me to visit him there, went into the question of 
the reception I might be likely to meet with on that side 
of the Atlantic. " I think," he wrote, " that to come over 
under a false name would be i7ifra dig. But really I fear 
that if you come under your own, you may be in for a 
digr 

Whether Grattan exaggerated the wrath of his Bos- 
tonian friends for the sake of his joke I do not know. 
Unquestionably the Americans, even speaking of them as 
a nation, were made very angry by my mother's book. 
But the anger was not of a very spiteful or rancorous de- 
scription, for from that day to this I have never met with 
anything but kindness and cordial friendliness from all 
the Americans I have known — and I have known very 
many. 

The return of my mother, and the success of her book, 
produced a change in the condition and circumstances of 
affairs at home which resembled the transformation scene 
in a pantomime that takes place at the advent of the good 
fairy. Even the old farmhouse at Harrow Weald was 



OLD DIARIES. 163 

brightened up physically, and to a far greater degree 
morally, by her presence. But we did not remain long 
there. Very shortly she took us back to Harrow, not to 
the large house built by my father on Lord Northw^ick's 
land, but to another very good house on the same farm — 
not above a stone's throw from the previous one, which he 
had made (very imprudently) by adding to and improving 
the original farmhouse — a very comfortable residence. 
This was the house which the world has heard of as " Or- 
ley Farm." 

And there my mother became immediately surrounded 
by many old friends and many new ones. I remember 
among the latter Letitia Landon, better known to the 
world as "L. E. L." She was a petite figure, very insig- 
nificant-looking, with a sharp chin, turn-up nose, and on 
the whole rather piquante face, though without any pre- 
tension to good looks. I remember her being seated one 
day at dinner by the side of a certain dignitary of the 
Church, who had the reputation of being more of a hon 
vivant than a theologian, and who was old enough to have 
been her father ; and on my asking her afterwards what 
they had been talking about so earnestly, as I had seen 
them, "About eating, to be sure !" said she. "I always 
talk to everybody on their strong point. I told him that 
writing poetry was my trade, but that eating was my 
pleasure, and w^e were fast friends before the fish was fin- 
ished !" Her sad fate and tragic ending, poor soul ! at- 
tracted much attention and sympathy at the time. And 
doubtless fate and the world used her hardly ; but she 
was one of those who never under any circumstances 
would have run a straight and prosperous course. 

Another visitor whom I remember well at that and 
other times was the Rev. Henry Milman, the third son 
of Sir Francis Milman, who was, if I rightly recollect, 
physician to Queen Charlotte. I remember hearing him 
say (but this was long previously) that no man need 
think much about the gout wdio had never had it till he 
was forty. His widow, Lady Milman, lived with her 
daughter many years at Pinner, near Harrow, and they 
were very old friends of my mother. She was a dear old 



164 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

lady with certain points of eccentricity about her. She 
used always to carry a volume of South's sermons with 
her to church for perusal during the less satisfactory dis- 
course of her more immediate pastor ; and I am afraid 
was not sufficiently careful to conceal her preference. It 
must be over sixty years since, lunching one day at Pin- 
ner, I was much amused at her insisting that Abraham, 
the old one-eyed footman, who had lived in the family all 
his life, should kneel before the dining-room fire to warm 
her plate of pickled salmon ! I remember walking with 
her shortly before her death in the kitchen garden at Pin- 
ner, when Saunders, the old butler, who had developed into 
a sort of upper gardener, was pruning the peach-trees. 
" Oh ! don't cut that, Saunders," said my lady ; " I want 
to see those blossoms. And I shall never see them anoth- 
er year !" "Must come off, my lady," said Saunders, inex- 
orably, as he sheared away the branch. " He never will 
let me have my way," grumbled the little old lady, as she 
resumed her trot along the gravel walk under the peach 
wall. My lady, however, could assert herself sufficiently 
on some occasions. I happened to be at Pinner one day 
when Mrs. Archdeacon Hodgson, a neighbor, called some- 
what earlier in the day than the recognized hour for morn- 
ing visits. " Very glad to see you, my dear, " said my lady, 
rising to meet her astonished visitor, who was at least 
twice as big a woman as herself, I mean physically, "but 
you must not do this sort of thing again P'' 

Her third son, Henry Milman, who, having begun his 
career as the author of, perhaps, the best " Newdegate " 
ever written, was famous during the earlier part of it as a 
poet and dramatist, and during the latter portion of it 
(more durably) as an historian, was, with his very beauti- 
ful wife, one of our visitors at this period. He was at 
that time certainly a very brilliant man, but I did not like 
him as well as I did his elder brother. Sir William. I 
give only the impressions of an undergraduate, who was, 
I think, rather boyish for his age. But it seemed to me 
that the poet had a strain of worldliness in his character, 
and a certain flavor of cynicism (not incompatible, how- 
ever, with serious views and earnest feelings on religious 



OLD DIARIES. 



165 



subjects), which were wholly absent from the elder broth- 
er, who wrote neither poems nor histories, but was to my 
then thinking a very ^^erfect gentleman. " JSfec vixit male 
qui 7iatus moriensque fefelllt.''^ 

I find recorded in a diary of that time (November, 1832) 
some notes of a conversation with Henry Milman, one 
evening when I, with my parents and sister, had been 
dining with Lady Milman at Pinner, which are, perhaps, 
worth reproducing here. 

I asked him, in the course of a long after-dinner con- 
versation, what he thought of Shuttleworth's book on the 
" Consistency of Revelation with Itself and with Human 
Reason," which formed the second volume of the series 
called the " Theological Library," and which I had recent- 
ly been reading. He said the work had a great many 
faults, one of the principal of which was its great difficul- 
ty. On this point I find, from other entries in my diary, 
that my undergraduate experience fully coincided with 
his more valuable judgment. The reasoning in a great 
many places was, he said, false ; and in that part which 
treated of the Mosaic account of the creation of the world, 
the great question was entirely blinked. The abstract of 
moral duties appeared to him, he said, to be by far the most 
able part of the book. He considered Shuttleworth " a man 
of very limited reading." And this, perhaps, he may have 
seemed to one of whom it used to be said jocosely in his 
own family that " Henry reads a book, not as other mor- 
tals do, line after line, but obliquely, from the left-hand 
upper corner of a page to the right-hand lower corner 
of the same !" 

Milman, on the same occasion, spoke much of the decay 
of a love of learning in England generally, and particular- 
ly at Oxford. He said that no four men could be found 
there who were up to the European level of the day in any 
branch of learning — not even in theology. And speaking 
of England generally, he said that in no one public library 
in the country could the books requisite for a man who 
w^ished to write a learned work on any subject whatever 
be found. Germany was, and was, he thought, likely to 
remain, the great emporium of all learning. 



166 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

As for the Church, he said that it would never be the 
profession that it had been — that it would not be his 
choice for a son of his ; and that the law was the only- 
profession for talent in these days. He observed that it 
was very remarkable that no change — no revolution — had 
ever passed over this country without adding power and 
wealth to that profession. 

Here, also, I may record, if the reader will pardon the 
abruptness of a transition that hurries him from scholarly 
disquisition to antipodean regions of subject and social 
atmosphere, an expedition I and my brother Anthony 
made together, which recurs in my mind in connection 
with those days. But I think that it must have belonged 
to the Harrow Weald times before the return of my 
mother from America, because the extreme impecuniosity, 
which made the principal feature of it, would not have 
occurred subsequently. We saw — my brother and I — 
some advertisement of an extra - magnificent entertain- 
ment that was to take place at Vauxhall ; something of 
so gorgeous promise in the way of illuminations and fire- 
works, and all for the specially reduced entrance fee of one 
shilling each person, that, chancing to possess just that 
amount, we determined to profit by so unique an occasion. 
Any means of conveyance other than legs, ignorant in 
those days of defeat, was not to be thought of. We had 
just the necessary two shillings, and no more. So we set off 
to walk the (at least) fourteen miles from Harrow Weald 
to Vauxhall, timing ourselves to arrive there about nine 
in the evening. Anthony danced all night. I took no 
part in that amusement, but contented myself with looking 
on and with the truly superb display of fireworks. Then 
at about 1 a.m. we set off and walked back our fourteen 
miles home again without having touched bite or sup ! 
Did anybody else ever purchase the delight of an evening 
at Vauxhall at so high a price ? 

I did, however, much about the same time, a harder 
day's walk. I was returning from Oxford to Harrow 
Weald, and I determined to walk it, not, I think, on this 
occasion, dejiciente cru7nend, but for pleasure, and to try 
my powers. The distance, I think, is, as near as may be, 



OLD DIARIES. 167 

forty-seven miles. But I carried a very heavy knapsack 
— a far heavier one than any experienced campaigner 
would have advised. This was the longest day's walk I 
ever achieved ; and I arrived very tired and footsore. 
But the next morning I was perfectly well, and ready to 
have taken the road again. Upon this occasion I walked 
my first stage of twelve miles before breakfast ; absolute- 
ly, that is to say, before breaking my fast. I think that 
not very many persons could do this, and I am sure that 
the few who could do it had much better not do so. 

I have spoken of the immense change operated in the 
circumstances and surroundings of all of us by my mother's 
return from America and the success of her first work, 
the " Domestic Manners of the Americans." But, effica- 
cious as this success was for producing so great a change, 
and sufficient as the continued success of her subsequent 
works was to rescue the whole of her family from the 
slough of ruin, in which my father's farming operations, 
and to some extent, I suppose, his injudicious commercial 
attempt at Cincinnati, had involved him, the results of this 
success were very far from availing to stem the tide of 
ruin as regarded his affairs. They were sufficient to re- 
lieve him from all expenses connected with the household 
or its individual members, but not to supply, in addition to 
all these, the annual losses on HarroAV farm. Hence the 
break-up described by my brother in his " Autobiography," 
and my father's exodus from Harrow as there narrated. 



CHAPTER XII. 

, OLD DIARIES — (C07lti7lUed.) 

Of all that Anthony there describes I saw nothing. I 
was attending the " divinity lectures " in Oxford. But as 
soon as the short course of them was completed, I left 
England to join my parents at Bruges. And here is the 
condensed record of the journey as performed in 1834. I 
suppose that I went by the Thames to Calais, instead of 
by Dover, as a measure of economy. I left Oxford by the 
Rocket at three in the morning on Tuesday, the 20th 
May, and on reaching London found that there was no 
packet to Ostend till the following Saturday. I deter- 
mined, therefore, to go to Calais by that which left Tower 
Stairs on the Wednesday. It was the first time I had ever 
crossed the Channel. The times I have crossed that salt 
girdle subsequently must be counted by hundreds. I 
observe that having begun ray journey at 3 a.m. did not 
prevent me from finding "Farren admirable" in both 
"The Minister and the Mercer" and in "Secret Service," 
at Drury Lane that Tuesday evening. I slept at the 
Spread Eagle in Gracechurch Street that night, and left 
Tower Stairs at 10 a.m. the next morning in the Loixl 
Melville, Captain Middletown (names of ship and captain 
duly recorded), and had a rough passage of thirteen hours; 
all hands sick, " even I a little at last," says the veracious 
chronicle. I was taken by the victor in a sharp contest 
with half a dozen rivals over my body to the Hotel de 
Londres, a clean, comfortable, and quiet, but, I suppose, 
quite second-rate inn. There was no conveyance to Dun- 
kirk before one the next day. So, " after a delicious break- 
fast on coffee." (Ah ! how la helle France has degringoled 
in respect to coffee and some other matters since those 
happy days ! Then coffee really was ahcays good every- 
where in France. Now England has no cause whatever 



OLD DIARIES. 169 

to envy her neighbor in that respect.) I spent the inter- 
vening hours in going (of all things in the world) to the 
top of the church tower. The diligence brought me to 
Dunkirk in time for supper at the Tete de Flandres Hotel, 
at Avhich " a Frenchman, who sat next me, insisted on my 
sharing his bottle of vin de Bourdeaux, and would not 
hear of my paying my share of the cost, saying that he 
was at home in his own country." I find that I went after 
supper " to the top of a fine tower " (my second that day ! 
I had a mania, not quite cured yet, for ascending towers), 
and started at five the next morning for Nieuport " in a 
vile little barge, in company with two young pedestrianiz- 
ing Belgians," and arrived there about noon, after a most 
tedious voyage, and changing, without bettering, our 
barge three or four times. At Nieuport we found " a sort 
of immense overgrown gig with two horses, which con- 
vej^ed eight of us to Ostend." 

There I was most kindly and hospitably received by 
Mr. Fauche, the English consul, and his very lovely wife. 
Mrs. Fauche had been before her marriage one of my 
mother's cohort of pretty girl friends, and was already 
my old acquaintance. She was the daughter of Mr. Tom- 
kisson, a pianoforte manufacturer, who had married the 
daughter of an Irish clergyman. Their daughter Mary 
was, as I first knew her, more than a pretty girl. She was 
a very beautiful and accomplished woman, with one of 
the most delicious soprano voices I ever heard. I was 
anxious to join my mother at Bruges, who, despite her 
literary triumphs, had passed through so much trouble 
since I had seen her. But it needed the reinforcement of 
.this anxiety by a sense of duty to enable me to resist Mrs. 
Fauche's invitation to remain a day or two at Ostend. 

I found my father and mother, and my two sisters, 
Cecilia and Emily, established in a large and very roomy 
house, just outside the southern gate of the city, known 
as the Chateau d'Hondt. It was a thoroughly good and 
comfortable house, and, taken unfurnished, speedily be- 
came under my mother's hands a very j^leasant one. Nor 
was it long before it became socially a very agreeable one, 
for the invariable result of my mother's presence, which 



170 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

drew what was pleasant around her as surely as a magnet 
draws iron, showed itself in the collection of a variety of 
agreeable people — some from the other side of the Chan- 
nel, some from Ostend, and some few from Bruges. 

All this made a social atmosphere, which with the for- 
eign flavoring so wholly new to me, was very pleasant; 
but it seems not to have sufficed to prevent me from seiz- 
ing the opportunity for a little of that locomotive sight- 
seeing, the passion for which, still unquenched, appears to 
have been as strong in me as when I hankered after a 
place on some one of the "down" coaches starting from 
the " Cellar " in Piccadilly, or gazed enviously at the out- 
ward-bound ships in the docks. For I find the record of 
a little week's tour among the Belgian cities, with full 
details of all the towers I ascended, observations of an 
ecclesiological neophyte on the churches I everywhere 
visited, and remarks on men and manners, the rawness of 
which does not entirely destroy the value of them, as il- 
lustrating the changes wrought there too by the lapse of 
half a century. 

In one place I find myself tasting the contents of the 
library of a Carmelite monastery, and remarking on the 
strangeness of the sole exception to the theological char- 
acter of the collection having consisted in a Cours Gastro- 
nomique, which appeared to me scarcely needed by a com- 
munity bound by its vows to perpetual abstinence from 
animal food. 

Some pages of the record also are devoted to the state- 
ment of *' a case " which I lighted on in some folio on 
casuistry, on the question "whether it is lawful to adore 
a crucifix, when there is strong ground for supposing that 
a demon may be concealed in the material of which it is 
constructed !" 

It seems to me on reading these pages (for the first time 
since they were written), that I was to no small degree 
seductively impressed by the music, architectural beauties, 
and splendid ceremonial of the Roman Catholic worship, 
seen in those days to much better effect in Belgium than 
at the present time in Rome. But amid it all, the sturdy 
Protestantism of Wbately's pupil manifests itself in a 



OLD DIARIES. I7I 

moan over the pity, the pity of it, that it should " all be 
based on falsehood." 

All the pleasant state of things at the Chateau d'Hondt 
at Bruges, described above, was of short duration, how- 
ever, for disquieting accounts of the health of ray brother 
Henry, who had been stajnng at Exeter with that dear 
old friend, Fanny Bent, to whom the reader has already 
been introduced, began to arrive from Devonshire. 

It was moreover necessary that I should without loss of 
time set my hand to something that might furnish me with 
daily bread. So on the 21st of June I " went on board 
Captain Smithett's vessel the Arroio and had a quiet pas- 
sage to Dover." On arriving there I " hastened to secure 
my place on a coach about to start, and the first turn for 
having my baggage examined at the custom-house. This 
examination was rather a rigid one, and they made me 
pay 45. Id. for two or three books I had with me. We 
reached Canterbury about nightfall, breakfasted at Roch- 
ester, and arrived at Charing Cross at six." My diary 
does not say " six p.m.," and it seem incredible that any 
coach — though on the slowest road out of London, as the 
Dover road always was — should have breakfasted at 
Rochester, and taken J^he whole day to travel thence to 
Charing Cross ; but it is more incredible still that we 
should have stopped to breakfast at Rochester, and then 
reached London at 6 a.m. 

It must have been 6 p.m.; but I read that *'I started at 
once to walk to Harrow by the canal (!) where I was re- 
ceived with more than kindness by the Grants." 

I had come down to London with the intention of giv- 
ing classical teaching to any who were willing to pay 
about ten shillings an hour for it. I had testimonials and 
recommendations galore from a very varied collection of 
pastors, masters, and friends. Several of the latter also 
were actively eager to assist my object, foremost amona^ 
whom I may name with unforgetting gratitude Dr. David 
Williams, ray old raaster at Winchester, then warden of 
New College. Thus furnished, pupils were not wanting, 
and raoney araply sufficient for my imraediate needs 
seemed to come in easily. I did my best with ray pupils 



172 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

during the short hours of my work ; but much success is 
not to be expected from pupils the very circumstance and 
terms of whose tuition give rise to the presumption that 
they are irremediably stupid or idle, and the hired " coach " 
a dernier resort. Such employers as I had to deal with, 
however, if they assigned you somewhat hopeless tasks, 
appeared to be satisfied with an infinitesimal amount of 
results, and I believe I gave satisfaction in all cases save 
that of a lady, the widowed mother of an only son, a very 
elegant and fashionable dame in Belgrave Square, who 
complained once to the clergyman who had recommended 
me to her, that I had come to her house one Monday morn- 
ing "in a very dusty condition." 1 fear she might have 
said every Monday morning, for my custom was to walk 
up to my lesson from Harrow, where I had been spending 
the Sunday with the Grants, and " hnmer noch stduhen 
die Wege"*^ hardly less on the Harrow road than Goethe 
found them to do in Italy. I had to tell her that the dust 
on my shoes had not reached my brain, and that I had no 
pretension, and entirely declined, to be an exemplar to her 
son in the matter of his toilet. We parted very good 
friends, however, at the end of my engagement. When 
she said some complimentary words about my work with 
her son, I could not refrain from saying that I had done 
my best to prepare myself for it by having my shoes care- 
fully blacked. She laughed, and said, "I could not find 
fault with your Latin and Greek, Mr. Trollope. And 
would it not be better if people always confined their 
criticism to what they do understand ?" 

I was living during these months in Little Marlborough 
Street, in a house kept by a tailor and his mother. It was 
a queer house, disconnected with the row of buildings in 
which it stood, a survival of some earlier period. It stood 
in its own court, by which it was separated from the street. 
I found all the place transmogrified when I visited it a 
year or two ago. During the latter part of my residence 
there the lodgings were shared by my brother Anthony, 
who, as related by himself, had accepted a place in the 
secretary's office in the post-office. The lodgings were 
very cheap, more so I think than the goodness of them 



OLD DIARIES. I73 

might have justified. We were the only lodgers ; and the 
cheapness of the rooms was, I suspect, in some degree 
caused by the fact that the majority of young-men lodgers 
would not have tolerated the despotic rule of our old land- 
lady, the tailor's mother. She made us very comfortable ; 
but her laws were many, and of the nature of those of the 
Medes and Persians. 

Meantime matters were becoming more and more gloomy 
in the Chateau d'Hondt, outside the St. Peter's Gate, at 
Bruges. My brother Henry had returned thither from 
Devonshire ; and his condition was unmistakably becom- 
ing worse. While I was still living in Little Marlborough 
Street, my mother came over hurriedly to London, bring- 
ing him and my sister Emily with her. They travelled 
by boat from Ostend to London to avoid the land journey. 
I take it poor Henry was led to suppose that the journey 
was altogether caused by the necessity of interviews be- 
tween my mother and her publishers. But the real motive 
of it was to obtain the best medical advice for him and 
(as, alas ! it began to appear to be necessary) for my sister 
Emily. 

All kinds of schemes of southern travel, and voyages to 
Madeira, etc., had been proposed for Henry, who, having 
himself, with the hopefulness peculiar to his malady, no 
shadow of a doubt of his own recovery, entered into them 
all with the utmost zest. A kind friend, I forget by what 
means or interest, had offered to provide free passages to 
Madeira. Alas ! the first consultation with the medical 
authorities put an end to all such schemes. And my poor 
mother had the inexpressibly sad and diflicult task of 
quashing them all without allowing her patient to suspect 
the real reason of their being given uj). 

She had to take him back to Bruges ; and I accom- 
panied them to the boat lying off the Tower, and remained 
with them an hour before it weighed anchor. And then 
and there I took the last leave of my brother Henry, I 
well knowing, he never imagining, that it was forever. 

And now began at Bruges a time of such stress and 
trouble for my mother as few women have ever passed 
through. The grief, the Rachel sorrows of mothers watch- 



174 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

iiig by the dying beds of those to save whose lives they 
would — ah ! how readily — give their own, are, alas, com- 
mon enough. But no account, no contemplation of any 
such scene of anguish, can give an adequate conception of 
what my mother went through victoriously. 

Her literary career had hitherto been a succession of 
triumphs. Money was coming in with increasing abun- 
dance. But these successes had not yet lasted long enough 
to enable her, in the face of all she had done for the ruined 
household to which she had returned from America, to 
lay by any fund for the future. And though the proceeds 
of her labor were amply sufficient for all current needs, it 
was imperative that that labor should not be suspended. 

It was under these circumstances that she had to pass 
her days in watching by the bedside of a very irritable 
invalid, and her nights — when he fortunately for the most 
part slept — in composing fiction ! It was desirable to keep 
the invalid's mind from dwelling on the hopelessness of 
his condition. And, indeed, he was constantly occupied 
in planning travels and schemes of activity for the antic- 
ipated time of his recovery, which she had to enter into 
and discuss with a cheerful countenance and bleeding 
heart. It was also especially necessary that my sisters, 
especially the younger, already threatened by the same 
malady, should be kept cheerful, and prevented from 
dwelling on the phases of their brother's illness. This 
was the task in which, with agonized mind, she never 
faltered from about nine o'clock every morning till eight 
o'clock in the evening. Then with wearied body, and 
mind attuned to such thoughts as one may imagine, she 
had to sit down to her desk to write her novel with all the 
verve at her command, to please light-hearted readers, till 
two or three in the morning. This, by the help of green 
tea and sometimes laudanum, she did daily and nightly 
till the morning of the 23d of December of that sad 1834; 
and lived after it to be eighty-three ! 

But her mind was one of the most extraordinarily con- 
stituted in regard to recuperative power and the capacity 
of throwing off sorrow that I ever knew or read of. Any 
one who did not know her, as her own son knew her, might 



OLD DIARIES. I75 

have supposed that she was deficient in sensibility. No 
judgment could be more mistaken. She felt acutely, ve- 
hemently. But she seemed to throw off sorrow as, to use 
the vulgar phrase, a duck's back throws off water, be- 
cause the nature of the organism will not suffer it to rest 
there. JIow often have I applied to her the words of 
David under a similar affliction ! 

My brother died on the 23d of December, 1834, and 
was buried at Bruges, in the Protestant portion of the 
city cemetery. Had his life been much prolonged, I think 
that that of my mother must have sunk under the burden 
laid upon it. I hastened to cross the Channel as soon as I 
heard of my brother's death, but did not arrive in time 
for his funeral. 

A few days later I was, I find, consulting a Bruges phy- 
sician, a Dr. Herbout, whom I still remember perfectly 
well, about the health of my father, which had recently 
been causing my mother some anxiety. Herbout was an 
old army doctor who had served under Napoleon. It is 
probable that he was more of a surgeon than a physician. 
His opinion was that my father's condition, though not 
satisfactory, did not indicate any cause for immediate 
alarm. 

I remained at Bruges till the first week in April. That 
is to say, the Chateau d'Hondt was my home during those 
months, but the monotony of it was varied by frequent 
visits to Ostend, which Mrs. Fauche always found the 
means of making agreeable. One week of the time also 
was spent in a little tour through those parts of Belgium 
which I had not yet seen, in company with my old friend, 
and the reader's old acquaintance, Fanny Bent. It was an 
oddly constituted travelling party — the young man full 
of strength, activity, and eagerness to see everything that 
indefatigable exertion could show him, and the very plain, 
Quaker -like, middle-aged old maid, absolutely new to 
Continental ways and manners and habits. Yet few peo- 
ple, I think, have ever seen the many interesting sights of 
the region we travelled over more completely than I and 
Fanny Bent. The number of towers (Antwerp among 
them) to the tops of which I took her, as recorded in my 



1Y6 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

diary, seems preposterous. But Fanny Bent bravely stuck 
to her work, and where I led she followed. I have since 
squired many fairer and younger dames, but never one so 
bravely determined on doing all that was to be done. And 
very much we both enjoyed it. 

Almost immediately after my return from this little 
excursion I received a letter from an old Wykehamist 
schoolfellow, the Rev. George Hall, of Magdalen, son of 
the head of Pembroke at Oxford, offering me a master- 
ship in King Edward's Grammar School, at Birmingham. 
The head -master of that school was at that time Dr. 
Jeune, a Pembroke man, and thence a close friend of 
George Hall, who himself held one of the masterships, 
which he was about to resign. The salary of the master- 
ship offered me was £200 a year, with, of course, pros- 
pects of advancement. I at once determined to accept 
it, and, with the promptitude which in those days charac- 
terized me (at least in all cases in which promptitude in- 
volved immediate locomotion), I decided to leave Bruges 
for Birmingham on the morrow. I slept at Ostend the 
next night, and the following day crossed to Dover with 
my friend Captain Smithett, of the Arroic, " the only 
other passengers," says my diary, "being a maniac and a 
corpse." 

Smithett was a remarkably handsome man, and the 
very beau-ideal of a sailor. For many years he was the 
man always selected to carry any royal or distinguished 
personage who had to cross the Channel from or to Dover. 
He was an immense favorite with all the little Ostend 
-^orld — with the female part of it, of course, especially. 
I remember his showing me, with much laughter, an anony- 
mous billet doux which had reached him, beginning, " O 
toi qui commandes la Flhche, tu peux aussi commander les 
coeurs,^'' etc., etc. I discovered the writer some time sub- 
sequently in an extremely pretty baigneuse^ the wife, I am 
sorry to say, of a highly respected Belgian banker. Per- 
haps all his Ostend admirers did not know that he had a 
charming wife at Dover, He was all the more an object 
of our admiration from the singular contrast between him 
and his colleague, a certain Captain Murch. Between 



OLD DIARIES. 177 

tfiem they did in those days the whole of the Ostend and 
Dover mail business. Poor Murch was much of an inva- 
lid, and, strange as it may seem, suffered invariably on 
every passage, from year's end to year's end, from sea- 
sickness. Think of the purgatory involved in the combi- 
nation of such a constitution with such a profession ! The 
port of Ostend was at that time somewhat difficult to en- 
ter in heavy weather, and bad fogs were very frequent on 
that coast. Poor Murch was always getting into difficul- 
ties which involved " lying to," and reaching his destina- 
tion long after time ; whereas we held that the dashing 
Arrow would go wherever the Flying Dutchman could. 
And indeed I have seen her come in when I could only 
remain at the pier-head by lashing myself to a post. So 
much for " le heau Capitaine Smitete." 

Losing no time in London,! reached Birmingham on the 
evening of Sunday the 5th, and found my friend Hall 
quite sure of my election by the governors of the school 
on the recommendation of his friend Jeune. But then 
began a whole series of slips between the cup and the 
lip. There appeared to be no doubt of their electing me 
if they elected anybody; but a part of the board wished, 
on financial grounds, to defer the election of a new master 
for a while. The governors, at their meeting, put off the 
decision of the matter to another meeting on the 24th. 
On the 24th the matter was again put off. I had left 
Birmingham on the 12th, with the promise from Jeune, in 
whom on that, and on subsequent occasions, I found a 
most kind friend, that he would do all he could to urge 
the governors to a decision, and lose no time in letting me 
know the result. On the 24th the election of a new mas- 
ter was again " deferred " by the governors, and the pros- 
pect of their coming to a decision to elect one shortly 
seemed to become more uncertain. Many other meetings 
of the board took place with a similar result. On one 
occasion Jeune told me that, had he been in Birmingham 
at the time of the meeting, he felt sure that he could have 
induced them to come to an election; but he had unfor- 
tunately been absent. At another meeting I was told that 
I should have been elected had not Sir Edward Thomason, 



178 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

one of the governors who wished to elect a master, run 
away to a dinner-party, thus leaving the non-content party 
in the majority. 

Meantime I took my degree at Oxford on the 29th of 
April, which was needed for holding the appointment in 
question, and waited with what patience I could in Lon- 
don, dividing my time between the dear and ever -kind 
Grants and my brother Anthony, who was doing — or, 
rather, getting into continual hot water for not doing — 
his w^ork at the post-office. He was, I take it, a very bad 
office-clerk ; but as soon as he was appointed a surveyor's 
clerk became at once one of the most efficient and valua- 
ble officers in the post-office. 

Leaving Oxford on the night of the 29th I returned to 
Birmingham, and was again tantalized by repeated incon- 
clusive meetings of the school governors, till at last, on 
the 6th of May, Jeune told me that he thought that they 
would not come to an election till midsummer, but that, in 
any case, there was another of the masters whose resignation 
he had reason to believe would not be long deferred, and 
I should assuredly have his place. On this I returned to 
London, and on the 8th of May left it for Dover, on my 
way to join my mother in Paris. 

Having spoken of Anthony's efficiency as an officer of 
the post-office, I may, I think, in the case of so well-known 
a man, venture to expend a page in giving the reader an 
anecdote of his promptness, of which, as of dozens of oth- 
er similar experiences, he says nothing in his " Autobiog- 
raphy." He had visited the office of a certain postmaster 
in the southwest of Ireland in the usual course of his du- 
ties, had taken stock of the man, and had observed him 
in the course of his interview carefully lock a large desk 
in the office. Two days afterwards there came from head- 
quarters an urgent inquiry about a lost letter, the contents 
of which were of considerable value. The information 
reached the surveyor late at night, and he at once put the 
matter into the hands of his subordinate. There was no 
conveyance to the place where my brother determined his 
first investiarations should be made till the followino- morn- 
ing. But it did not suit him to wait for that, so he hired 



OLD DIARIES. ' I79 

a horse, and, riding bard, knocked np the postmaster whom 
he had interviewed, as related, a couple of days before, in 
the small hours. Possibly the demeanor of the man in 
some degree influenced his further proceedings. Be this 
as it may, he walked straight into the office, and said, 
" Open that desk !" The key, he was told, had been lost 
for some time past. Without another word he smashed 
the desk with one kick, and there found the stolen letter ! 

I have heard from him so many good stories of his offi- 
cial experiences that I feel myself tolerably competent to 
write a volume of "Memoirs of a Post-office Surveyor." 
But for the present I must content myself with one other 
of his adventures. He had been sent to South America to 
arrange some difficulties about postal communication in 
those parts which our authorities wished to be accom- 
plished in a shorter time than had been previously the 
practice. There was a certain journey that had to be 
done by a mounted courier, for which it was insisted that 
three days were necessary, while my brother was persuad- 
ed it could be done in two. He was told that he knew 
nothing of their roads and their horses, etc. "Well," 
said he, "I will ask you to do nothing that I, who know 
nothing of the country, and can only have such a horse as 
your post can furnish me, cannot do myself. I will ride 
with your courier, and then I shall be able to judge." 
And at daybreak the next morning they started. The 
brute they gave him to ride was, of course, selected with 
a view of making good their case, and the saddle was sim- 
ply an instrument of torture. He rode through that hot 
day, and kept the courier to his work in a style that rath- 
er astonished that official. But at night, when they were 
to rest for a few hours, Anthony confessed that he was in 
such a state that he began to think that he should have to 
throw up the sponge, which would have been dreadful to 
him. So he ordered two bottles of brandy, poured them 
into a wash-hand basin, and sat in it! His description of 
the agonizing result was graphic ! But the next day, he 
said, he was able to sit in his saddle without pain, did the 
journey in the two days, and carried his point. 

But I must abstain from further anticipations of the 



180 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

memoirs above spoken of, the more especially as I left my 
own story at the point where I had before me, like Rous- 
seau — and probably with no less rose-colored anticipations 
— un voyage dfaire, et Paris an houty and that for the first 
time in my life ! 



CHAPTER XIII. 

AT PARIS. 

I OBSERVE that I left Calais in the banquette of the dili- 
gence at 6 P.M. on the Friday night, May 8, 1835, and 
reached Paris at 3 p.m. on Sunday morning — thirty-three 
hours. I remember my great surprise at finding the en- 
tire way paved after the fashion that I had been accus- 
tomed to consider proper only for the streets of towns. 
We used, for by far the greatest part of the way, the un- 
paved spaces left on either side of the paved causeway. 
But the conductor told me that in winter they were gen- 
erally obliged to keep on the latter the whole way. The 
horses, two wheelers and three leaders abreast, were al- 
most — indeed, I think quite — without exception gray. 
They were also all, or almost all, stallions. The style of 
driving struck me as very rough, awkward, violent, and 
inelegant, but masterful and efficacious. The driver was 
changed with every relay ; and it seemed to me very prob- 
able that it was expedient that each man should know 
such cattle, not only on the road, but in the stable. 

We breakfasted at Abbeville and dined at Beauvais. 
And I find it recorded that I contrived at both places to 
find time for a flying visit to the cathedral, and was high- 
ly delighted with the noble fragment of a church at the 
latter city. 

I went to bed on arriving at the Hotel de Lille et d' Al- 
bion, which was in those days a very different place from 
its noisy, pretentious, and vulgar successor of the same 
name in the Rue St. Honore. The old house in the Rue 
des Filles de St. Thomas has long since disappeared, to- 
gether with the quiet little street in which it was situated. 
Like its successor, it was almost exclusively used by Eng- 
lish, but they were the English of the days when person- 
ally-conducted herds were not. The service was performed 



182 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

by handmaidens in neat caps, and white bodices over their 
colored skirts. There were no swallow-tail-coated waiters, 
and the coffee was exquisite. Tem^pi passati, perchh non 
tornate pilX f 

At ten the next morning I went to No. 6 Rue de Pro- 
vence, where I found my parents and my sisters at break- 
fast. 

The object of this Paris journey was twofold — the writ- 
ing a book in accordance with an agreement which my 
mother had entered into with Mr. Richard Bentley, the 
father of the publisher, and the consultation of a physi- 
cian to whom she had been especially recommended re- 
specting my father's health, which was rapidly and too 
evidently declining. They had been in Paris some time 
already, and had formed a large circle of acquaintance, 
both English and French. I was told by my mother 
that the physician, who had seen my father several times, 
had made no pleasant report of his condition. He did 
not apprehend any immediately alarming phase of illness, 
but said that, had he been left to guess my father's age 
after visiting him, he should have supposed him to be 
more than fourscore, the truth being that he was very 
little more than sixty. 

This, my first visit to Paris, lasted one month only, 
from the 9th of May to the 9th of June, and many of the 
recollections which seem to me now to be connected with 
it very probably belong to subsequent visits, for my diary, 
reopened now for the first time after the interval of more 
than half a century, was kept, I find, in a very intermittent 
and slovenly manner. Ko doubt I found very few min- 
utes for journalizing in the four-and-twenty hours of each 
day. 

I well remember that my first impression of Lutetia 
Parisiorum — "Mudtown of the Parisians," as Carlyle 
translates it — was that of having stepped back a couple 
of centuries or so in the history of European civilization 
and progress. We are much impressed at home, and talk 
nauch of the vastness of the changes which the last fifty 
years have made in our own city, but I think that which 
the same time has operated in Paris is much greater. 



AT PARIS. 283 

Putting aside the mere extension of streets and dwellino-s 
which, great as it has been in Paris, has been much greater 
in London, the changes in the former city have been far 
more radical. Certainly there are many quarters of Lon- 
don where the eye now rests on that which is magnificent, 
and which, at the time when I knew the town well, pre- 
sented nothing but what was, if not sordid, at least ugly. 
But, to those who remember the streets of Louis Philippe's 
city, the change, in the whole conception of city life and 
the ma7iihre d^etre of the population, is far greater. With 
the exception of the principal boulevards in the neighbor- 
hood of the recently completed " Madeleine " and its then 
recently established flower-market, the streets were still 
traversed by filthy and malodorous open ditches, which 
did, more or less imperfectly, the duty of sewers, and Paris 
still deserves its name of "Mudtown." Wretched little 
oil-lamps, suspended on ropes stretched across the streets, 
barely served to make darkness visible. Water was still 
carried, at so much the bucket, up the interminable stair- 
cases of the Parisian houses by stalwart Auvergnats, who 
came from their mountains to do a work more severe than 
the Parisians could do for themselves. 

But another specialty, which very forcibly struck me, 
and cannot be said to have been any survival of ways and 
habits obsolete on the other side of the Channel, was the 
remarkable manner in which the political life of the hour, 
with its emotions, opinions, and passions, was enacted, so 
to speak, on the stage of the streets, as a drama is present- 
ed on the boards of a theatre. Truly he who ran through 
the streets of Paris in those days might read, and, indeed, 
could not help reading, the reflection and the manifesta- 
tion of the political divisions and passions which animated 
the reign of the bourgeois king, and ended by destroy- 
ing it. 

And in this respect the time of my first visit to Paris 
was a very interesting one. The Parisian world was, of 
course, divided into Monarchists and Republicans, the lat- 
ter of whom labored under the imputation, in some cases 
probably unjust, but in more entirely merited (as in cer- 
tain other more modern instances), of being willing and 



184 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

ready to bring their theories into practice by perpetrating 
or conniving at any odious monstrosity of crime, violence, 
and bloodshed. The Fieschi incident had recently en- 
lightened the world on the justice of such accusations. 

But the Monarchists were more amusingly divided into 
" Parceque Bourbon," supporters of the existing regime^ 
and ^'Qiioique Bourbon," tolerators of it. The former, 
of course, would have preferred the white flag and Charles 
Dix ; but failing the possibility of such a return to the 
old ways, were content to live under the rule of a sovereign 
who, though not the legitimate monarch by right divine, 
was at least a scion of the old legitimate race. The 
" Quoique Bourbon " partisans were the men who, deny- 
ing all right to the throne save that which emanated from 
the will of the people, were yet Monarchists from their 
well-rooted dread of the intolerable evils which Republi- 
canism had brought, and, as they were convinced, would 
bring again upon France, and were therefore contented to 
support the bourgeois monarchy " although " the man on 
the throne was an undeniable Bourbon. 

But what made the streets, the boulevards, the Champs 
Elysees, and especially the Tuileries garden peculiarly 
amusing to a stranger, was the circumstance that the Pa- 
risians all got themselves up with strict attention to the 
recognized costume proper to their political party. The 
Legitimist, the '^Quoique Bourbon'''' bourgeois (very prob- 
ably in the uniform of the then immensely popular Nation- 
al Guard), and the Republican in his appropriate bandit- 
shaped hat and coat with exaggeratedly large lappels, or 
draped picturesquely in the folds of a cloak, after a 
fashion borrowed from the other side of the Alps, were 
all distinguishable at a glance. It was then that deli- 
ciously graphic line (I forget who wrote it) " Feignons 
dfeindre dfin de mieux dissimuler^^ was applied to char- 
acterize the conspirator-like attitudes it pleased these 
gentlemen to assume. 

The truth was that Paris was still very much afraid of 
them. I remember the infinite glee, and the outpouring 
of ridicule, which hailed the dispersion of a Republican 
"demonstration" (the reader will forgive the anachro- 



AT PARIS. 185 

iiism of the phrase), at the Porte St. Martin, by the judi- 
cious use of a powerful fire-engine. The heroes of the 
drapeau rouge had boasted they would stand their ground 
against any charge of soldiery. Perhaps they would have 
done so. But the helter-skelter that ensued on the first 
well-directed jet of cold water from the pipe of a fire- 
engine furnished Paris with laughter for days afterwards. 

But, as I have said, Paris, not unreasonably, feared them. 
Secret conspiracy is always an ugly enemy to deal with. 
And no violence of mere speculative opinion would have 
sufiiced, had fear been absent, to cause the very marked 
repulsion with which all the Parisians, who had anything 
to lose, in that day regarded their Republican fellow- 
citizens. 

Assuredly the Conservatives of the Parisian world of 
1835 were not "the stupid party." Both in their news- 
papers, and other ephemeral literature, and in the never- 
ending succession of current inots and jokes which circu- 
lated in the Parisian salons, they had the pull very decid- 
edly. I remember some words of a parody on one of the 
Republican songs of the day, which had an immense vogue 
at that time. " On devrait planter le cMne^'' it ran, ''^ pour 
Varhre de la liherte " (it will be remembered that planting 
"trees of liberty " was one of the common and more harm- 
less " demonstrations " of the Republican party). ^^ Ses 
glands nouriraient sans peine les cochons qui Vont plant e!''^ 
And the burden of the original which ran, '•^ Mourir pour 
la patrie, G^est le sort le plus beau le ^:)^i^s dig7ie d^envie,^"* 
was sufficiently and very appositely caricatured by the 
slight change of " 3Iourir pour la patrie " into " JSfourris 
par la patrie,'' etc. 

To a stranger seeing Paris as I saw it, and frequenting 
the houses which I frequented, it seemed strange that 
such a commamity should have considered itself in serious 
danger from men who seemed to me, looking from such a 
standpoint, a mere handful of skulking melodramatic en- 
thusiasts, playing at conspiracy and rebellion rather than 
really meditating it. But I was not at that time fully 
aware how entirely the real danger was to be found in 
regions of Paris and strata of its population which were 



186 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

as entirely hidden from my observation as if they had 
been a thousand miles away. But though I could not see 
the danger, I saw unmistakably enough the fear it inspired 
in all classes of those who, as I said before, had anything 
to lose. 

It was this fear that made the National Guard the 
heroes of the hour. It was impossible but that such a 
body of men — Parisian shopkeepers put into uniform (those 
of them who had condescended to wear it ; for many 
used to be seen who contented themselves with girding 
on a sabre and assuming a firelock, while others would go 
to the extent of surmounting the ordinary black coat with 
the regulation military shako) — should afford a target for 
many shafts of ridicule. The capon-lined paunches of a 
considerable contingent of these w^ell-to-do warriors were 
an inexhaustible source of not very pungent jokes. But 
Paris would have been frightened out of its wits at the 
bare suggestion of suppressing these citizen saviours of 
society. Of course they were petted at the Tuileries. 
No reception ov fete of any kind was complete without a 
large sprinkling of these shopkeeping guardsmen, and 
their presence on such occasions was the subject of an un- 
failing series of historiettes. 

I remember an anecdote excellently illustrative of the 
time, which was current in the salons of the " Parceque 
Bourbon " society of the day. A certain elderly duchess 
of the vieille roche, a dainty little woman, very mignoniie^ 
whose exquisite parure and still more exquisite manners 
scented the air at a league's distance, to use the common 
French phrase, with the odor of the most aristocratic salons 
of the Quartier St. Germain, was, at one of Louis Phi- 
lippe's Tuileries receptions, about to take from the tray 
handed round by a servant the last of the ices which it 
had contained, when a huge outstretched hand, with its 
five wide-spread fingers, was protruded from behind over 
her shoulder, and the refreshment of which slie was about 
to avail herself was seized by a big National Guard with 
the exclamation, '■'' Enfoncle la petite mhreP'' 

Nevertheless, it may be safely asserted that the little 
duchess, and all the world she moved in, would have been 



AT PARIS. 187 

infinitely more dismayed had they gone to the Tuileries 
and seen no National Guards there. 

Among the many persons of note with whom I became 
more or less well acquainted during that month, no one 
perhaps stands out more vividly in my recollection than 
Chateaubriand. He also, though standing much aloof 
from the noise and movement of the political passions of 
the time, was an aristocrat jusqu'au bout des ongles, in 
appearance, in manners, in opinions, and general tone of 
mind. The impression to this effect immediately produced 
on one's first presentation was in no degree due to any 
personal advantages. He was not, when I knew him, nor 
do I think he ever could have been, a good-looking man. 
He stooped a good deal, and his head and shoulders gave 
me the impression of being somewhat too large for the 
rest of his person. The lower part of his face too, was, I 
thought, rather heavy. 

But his every word and movement were characterized 
by that exquisite courtesy which was the inalienable, and 
it would seem incommunicable, specialty of the seigneurs 
of the ancien regime. And in his case the dignified bear- 
ing of the grand seigneur was tempered by a honhomie 
which produced a manner truly charming. 

And having said all this, it may seem to argue want of 
taste or want of sense in. myself to own, as truthfulness 
compels me to do, that I did not altogether like him. I 
had a good deal of talk with him, and that to a youngster 
of my years and standing was in itself very flattering, and I 
felt as if I were ungrateful for not liking him. But the 
truth in one word is, that he appeared to me to be a " tink- 
ling cymbal." I don't mean that he was specially insincere 
as regarded the person he was talking to at the moment. 
What I do mean is, that the man did not seem to me to 
have a mind capable of genuine sincerity in the conduct of 
its operations. He seemed to me a theatrically-minded 
man. Immediately after making his acquaintance I read 
the Gbiie du Chretienisme, and the book confirmed my 
impression of the man. He honestly intends to play a 
very good and virtuous part, but he is playing a part. 

He was much petted in those days by the men, and 



188 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

more especially by the women, of the ancien regime and 
the Quartier St. Germain. But I suspect that he was a 
good deal quizzed, and considered an object of more or 
less good-natured ridicule by the rest of the Parisian 
world. I fancy that he was in straitened circumstances. 
And the story went that he and his wife put all they pos- 
sessed into a box, of which each of them had a key, and 
took from day to day what they needed, till one fine day 
they met over the empty box with no little surprise and 
dismay. 

Chateaubriand thought he understood English well, and 
rather piqued himself upon the accomplishment. But I 
well remember his one day asking me to explain to him 
the construction of the sentence, " Let but the cheat en- 
dure, I ask not aught beside." My efforts to do so during 
the best part of half an hour ended in entire failure. 

He was in those days reading in Madame Recamier's 
salon at the Abbaye-aux-Bois (in which building my 
mother's friend, Miss Clarke, also had her residence), those 
celebrated 3femoires cVOutretomhe of which all Paris, or 
at least all literary and political Paris, was talking. Im- 
mense efforts were made by all kinds of notabilities to ob- 
tain an admission to these readings. But the favored ones 
had been very few. And my mother was proportionably 
delighted at the arrangement that a reading should be 
given expressly for her benefit. M. de Chateaubriand 
had ceased these seances for the nonce, and the gentleman 
who had been in the habit of reading for him had left 
Paris. But by the kindness of Miss Clarke and Madame 
Recamier, he was induced to give a sitting at the Abbaye 
expressly for my mother. This arrangement had been 
made before I reached Paris, and I consequently, to my 
great regret, was not one of the very select party. My 
mother was accompanied by my sisters only. I benefited, 
however, in my turn by the acquaintance thus formed, and 
subsequently passed more than one evening in Madame Re- 
camier's salon at the Abbaye-aux-Bois in the Rue du Bac. 

My mother, in her book on " Paris and the Parisians," 
writes of that reading as follows : " The party assembled 
at Madame Recamier's on this occasion did not, I think, 



AT PARIS. 18y 

exceed seventeen, including Madame Recamier and M. de 
Chateaubriand. Most of these had been present at for- 
mer readings. The Duchesses de Larochefoucald and de 
Noailles, and one or two other noble ladies, were among 
them. And I felt it was a proof that genius was of no 
party when I saw a granddaughter of General Lafayette 
enter among us. She is married to a gentleman who is 
said to be of the extreme cote gauche.'''' The passage of 
the "Memoires" selected for the evening's reading was the 
account of the author's memorable trip to Prague to visit 
the royal exiles. " Many passages," writes my mother, 
"made a profound impression on my fancy and on my 
memory, and I think I could give a better account of 
some of the scenes described than I should feel justiiied in 
doing, as long as the noble author chooses to keep them 
from the public eye. There were touches that made us 
weep abundantly ; and then he changed the key, and gave 
us the prettiest, the most gracious, the most smiling pict- 
ure of the young princess and her brother that it was pos- 
sible for pen to trace. And I could have said, as one does 
in seeing a clever portrait, ' That is a likeness, I'll be 
sworn for it.' " 

It may be seen from the above passage, and from some 
others in my mother's book on "Paris and the Parisians,", 
that her estimate of the man Chateaubriand was a some- 
w^hat higher one than that which I have expressed in the 
preceding pages. She w^as under the influence of the ex- 
ceeding charm of his exquisite manner. But in the fol- 
lowing passage, which I am tempted to transcribe by the 
curious light it throws on the genesis of the present lite- 
rary history of France, I can more entirely subscribe to 
the opinions expressed : 

" The active, busy, bustling politicians of the hour have 
succeeded in thrusting everything else out of place, and 
themselves into it. One dynasty has been overthrown, 
and another established ; old laws have been abrogated, 
and hundreds of new ones formed ; hereditary nobles have 
been disinherited, and little men made great. But amidst 
this plenitude of destructiveness, they have not yet con- 
trived to make any one of the puny literary reputations 



190 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

of the day weigh down the renown of those who have 
never lent their voices to the cause of treason, regicide, 
rebellion, or obscenity. The literary reputations both of 
Chateaubriand and Lamartine stand higher beyond all 
comparison than those of any other living French authors. 
Yet the first, with all his genius, has often suffered his 
imagination to run riot ; and the last has only given to 
the public the leisure of his literary life. But both of 
them are men of honor and principle, as well as men of 
genius ; and it comforts one's human nature to see that 
these qualities will keep themselves aloft, despite what- 
ever squally winds may blow, or blustering floods assail 
them. That both Chateaubriand and Lamartine belong 
rather to the imaginative than to the positif class cannot 
be denied; but they are renowned throughout the world, 
and France is proud of them. The most curious literary 
speculations, however, suggested by the present state of 
letters in this country are not respecting authors such as 
these. They speak for themselves, and all the world 
knov^s them and their position. The circumstance de- 
cidedly the most worthy of remark in the literature of 
France at the present time is the effect which the last 
revolution appears to have produced. With the excep- 
tion of history, to which both Thiers (?) * and Mignet have 
added something that may live, notwithstanding their very 
defective philosophy, no single work has appeared since 
the Revolution of 1830 which has obtained a substantial, 
elevated, and generally acknowledged reputation for any 
author unknown before that period — not even among all 
the unbridled ebullitions of imagination, though restrained 
neither by decorum, principle, nor taste. Not even here, 
except from one female pen, which might become, were 
it the pleasure of the hand that wields it, the first now ex- 
tant in the world of fiction" (of course, Georges Sand is 
alluded to), " has anything appeared likely to survive its 
author. Nor is there any writer who during the same 
period has raised himself to that station in society by 
means of his literary productions which is so universally 

* My query. 



AT PARIS. 191 

accorded to all who have acquired high literary celebrity 
ill any country. 

" The name of Guizot was too well known before the 
Revolution for these observations to have any reference 
to hira." (Cousin should not have been forgotten.) "And 
however much he may have distinguished himself since 
July, 1830, his reputation was made before. There are, 
however, little writers in prodigious abundance. . . . Never, 
I believe, was there any period in which the printing- 
presses of France worked so hard as at present. The Rev- 
olution of 1830 seems to have set all the minor spirits in 
motion. There is scarcely a boy so insignificant, or a 
workman so unlearned, as to doubt his having the power 
and the right to instruct the world. ... To me, I con- 
fess, it is perfectly astonishing that any one can be found 
to class the writers of this restless clique as ' the literary 
men of France.' . . . Do not, however, believe me guilty 
of such presumption as to give you my own unsupported 
judgment as to the position which this 'new school,' as 
the decousu folks always call themselves, hold in the pub- 
lic esteem. My opinion on this subject is the result of 
careful inquiry among those who are most competent to 
give information respecting it. When the names of such 
as are best known among this class of authors are men- 
tioned in society, let the politics of the circle be what they 
may, they are constantly spoken of as a pariah caste that 
must be kept apart. 

" ' Do you know ?' has been a question I have re- 
peatedly asked respecting a person whose name is cited 
in England as the most esteemed French writer of the 
age — and so cited, moreover, to prove the low standard 
of French taste and principle. 

" ' No, madame,' has been invariably the cold answer. 

" < Or ?' 

** * No ; he is not in society.' 

« < Or ?' 

" * Oh, no ! His works live an hour — too long — and are 
forgotten.' " 

Now, are the writers of French literature of the present 
day, whose names will at once present themselves to every 



192 WHAT I REMEMBEPw. 

reader's iiiiiul, to be (Icemed superior to tliose of the time of 
Louis Philipjje, who "lent tlieir voices to the cause of trea- 
son, regicide, rebellion, or obscenity," and were unrestrained 
by either "decorum, principle, or taste?" For it is most 
assuredly no longer true that the writers in question are 
held to be a " pariah caste," or that they are not known 
and sought by " society." The faeilis deceusus progress 
of the half-century that has elai)sed since the cited pas- 
sages were written is certainly remarkable. 

There is one name, however, which cannot be simply 
classed as one of the decousus. Victor Hugo had already 
at that day made a European reputation. But the fol- 
lowing passage about him from my mother's book on 
" Paris and the Parisians" is so curious, and to the pres- 
ent generation must appear so, one may abnost say, mon- 
strous, that it is well worth while to reproduce it. 

" I have before stated," she writes, " that I have uni- 
formly heard the whole of the decousu school of authors 
spoken of with unmitigated contempt, and that not only 
})y the venerable advocates for the bo7i vieux temps, but 
also, and equally, by the distinguished men of the pres- 
ent day — distinguished botli by position and ability. Re- 
specting Victor Hugo, the only one of the tribe to which 
I allude who has been sulliciently read in England to jus- 
tify his being classed by us as a person of general celeb- 
rity, the feeling is more remarkable still. I have never 
mentioned him or his works to any person of good moral 
feeling or cultivated mind who did not appear to shrink 
from according him even the degree of reputation that 
those who are received as authority among our own cities 
liave been disposed to allow him. / might say that of 
him Jb\ance seems to be ashamed."*^ (My italics.) " ' Per- 
mit me to assure you,' said one gentleman, gravely and 
earnestly, * that no idea was ever more entirely and alto- 
gether erroneous than that of supposing that Victor Hugo 
and his productions can be looked on as a sort of type or 
specimen of the literature of France at the present hour, 
lie is the head of a sect, the high priest of a congregation 
who have abolished every law, moral and intellectual, by 
which the eiforts of the human mind have hitherto been 



AT J'AKIS. J 03 

regulated. ITc lia.s attained tliis pre-eminence, and I trust 
tliat no otli(!r will arine to dispute it with liirn. IJut Vic- 
t(jr Hugo is NO'i' a pojuilar French author.' " 

My rtseolleetioriH of all that I heard in l^ai-is, and my 
knowl(;dge of the cir(;leH (more than one;) in which my 
mother uscid to live, enable me to t(!Htify to the absolute 
truth of the above representation of the prevalent Parisian 
f(;eling at that day respecting Victor Hugo. Yet he had 
then published his "Lyrics," "Notre Dame de Paris," and 
the most notable of his dramas ; .and I think no such won- 
dei-fiil change of national oj>iiiion and scTitiment as the 
cliange from the above estimate to that now universally 
njcognizcd in France can be mvX with in the nicords of 
European literary liistory. Is it not passing strange that 
whole regions of l?aris should have Ix^en but the other day 
tiirn(!d, so to speak, into a vast mausol(!um to this same 
" ])ariah," and that 1 myself should have seen, as I did, 
the Pantheon not yet cleared from tlir; wreck of garlands 
and inscrijjtions and scaffoldings for sj)e(;tators, all of 
which had been pre])ared to do honor to his obsequies? 

]>iit it must b(! observcid that the violent ref)ulsion and 
reprobation with whi(;h he was in those dnyn regarded l>y 
all his countrymen, save the extreme and restless spirits 
of the Ke[)idjlican party, cannot fairly be taken as the re- 
sult and outcome of genuine literary criticism. All liter- 
ary jiidgnKjnts in I^'i-ance were tlu^n subordinated to po- 
litieal party fcjcling, and that was intensified by the most 
fatal of all disqualifications for the formation of sound 
and equal)le estimates — })y fear. All those well-to-do 
detesters of Victor Hugo and all his works, the ^' Quoique 
IJourbons" as well as the " Pro'cer/ue l*ourbons," the pros- 
f)erous suj)porters of the new ref/ime as well as the regret- 
ful adh(;rents of the old, lived in pc^rpetual fear of the 
men whose corypheus and hierophant was Victor Hugo, 
and felt, not without reason, tliat the admittedly rickety 
throne of the citizen king and those sleek and paunchy 
National (guardsmen alone stood between th(;m and the 
loss of all they h('.](\ dearest in tlu; world. Nevertheless, 
the contrast between the judgments and the feeling of IB.'J.'j 
and those of fifty years later is sufHciently remarkable. 




194 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

Much has been said, especially in England, of the great 
writer's historical inaccuracy in treating of English mat- 
ters. But an anecdote which my mother gives in her book 
is worth reproducing for the sake of the evidence it gives 
that in truth Victor Hugo was equally ignorantly and care- 
lessly inaccurate when speaking of home matters, on which, 
at least, it might have been thought that he would have 
been better informed. 

" An able lawyer, and most accomplished gentleman and 
scholar, who holds a distinguished station in the cour 
royaW'' (in all probability Berryer), "took us to see the 
Palais de Justice. Having shown us the chamber where 
criminal trials are carried on, he observed that this was 
the room described by Victor Hugo in his romance, add- 
ing, ^ He was, however, mistaken here, as in most places 
where he affects a knowledge of the times of which he 
writes. In the reign of Louis XI. no criminal trials ever 
took place within the walls of this building, and all the 
ceremonies as described by him resemble much more a 
trial of yesterday than of the age at which he dates his 
tale.' " 

Georges Sand, certainly upon the whole the most re- 
markable literary figure in the French world at the time 
of my visit to Paris, vidi tantum. That I had an oppor- 
tunity of doing on various occasions. She was a person 
on whom, quite apart from her literary celebrity, the eye 
of any observer would have dwelt with some speculative 
curiosity. She was hardly to be called handsome, or even 
pretty, but was still decidedly attractive. The large eyes 
a fleitr de tete, and the mobile and remarkably expressive 
mouth rendered the face both attractive and stimulative 
of interest. The features were unmistakably refined in 
character and expression, and the mouth — the most trust- 
worthy evidence-giving feature upon that point — was de- 
cidedly that of a high-bred woman. 

She was at that period of her varied career acting as 
well as writing in a manner which attracted the attention 
of Louis Philippe's very vigilant and abnormally suspicious 
police. She had recently left Paris for an excursion in the 
tete-d-tete company of the well-known Abbe de Lamenais, 



AT PARIS. 195 

who was at that time giving much trouble and disquietude 
to the official guardians of the altar and the throne. His 
comings and goings were the object of vigilant supervision 
on the part of the police authorities ; and it so happened 
by a strange chance that the report of the official observ- 
ers of this little excursion, which reached the official head- 
quarters, reached me also. And all the watchers had to 
tell was that the abbe and the lady his companion shared 
the same bedchamber at the end of their first day's jour- 
ney. Now the Abbe de Lamenais was an old, little, wiz- 
ened, dried-up, dirty — very dirty — priest. It is possible, 
but I have reason to think highly improbable, that econ- 
omy was the motive of this strange chamber comradeship. 
But I Avas then, and am still, very strongly convinced that 
the sole purpose of it was to outrage the lady's (and the 
priest's) censors, to act differently from everybody else, 
and to give evidence of superiority to conventionality and 
"prejudice." 

I wrote very carefully and conscientiously, some few 
years subsequently, a long article on Georges Sand in the 
Foreign Quarterly which attracted some attention at the 
time. I should write in many respects differently now. 
The lady in subsequent years put a considerable quantity 
of "water into her wine" — and though not altogether in 
the same sense — I have done so too. 

To both Guizot and Thiers I had the honor of being in- 
troduced. If I were to say that neither of them seemed 
to me to have entirely the manners and bearing of a gen- 
tleman, I should probably be thought to be talking affected 
and offensive nonsense. And I do not mean to say so in 
the ordinary English every-day use of the term. What I 
mean is that they were both of them very far from pos- 
sessing that grand-seigneur manner which, as I have said, 
so markedly distinguished Chateaubriand and many an- 
other Frenchman whom I knew in those days ; by no 
means all of them belonging to the aristocratic caste, 
party, or class. Guizot looked for all the world like a 
village schoolmaster, and seemed to me to have much 
the manner of one. He stooped a good deal, and poked 
his head forward. I remember thinking that he was, in 



196 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

manner, more like an Englishman than a Frenchman; and 
that it was a matter of curious speculation to me at the 
time, whether this effect might have been produced by 
the fact that he was a Protestant, and an earnest one, in- 
stead of being a Roman Catholic. Possibly my impres- 
sion of his schoolmaster-like deportment may have been 
the result of his manner to me. I was but a boy, with no 
claim at all to the honor of being noticed by him in any 
way. But I remember being struck by the difference of 
the manner of Thiers in this respect. 

All my prejudices and all that I knew of the two men 
disposed me to feel far the higher respect for Guizot. 
And my opinion still is that I judged rightly, whether in 
respect to character or intellectual capacity. Not but that 
I thought and think that Thiers was the brighter and, in 
the ordinary sense of the terra, the cleverer man of the 
two. There was no brightness about the premier ahord 
of Guizot, though doubtless a longer and more intimate 
acquaintance than was granted to me would have corrected 
this impression. But Thiers was, from the bow with which 
he first received you to the latest word you heard from 
him, all brightness. Of dignity he had nothing at all. 
If Guizot might have been taken for a schoolmaster, 
Thiers might have been mistaken for a stockbroker, say, 
a prosperous, busy, bustling, cheery stockbroker, or any 
such man of business. And if Guizot gave one the im- 
pression of being more English than French, his great 
rival was unmistakably and intensely French. I have no 
recollection of having much enjoyed my interview with 
M. Guizot. But I was happy during more than one even- 
ing spent in Thiers' house in Paris. 

Of Madame Recamier I should have said the few words 
I have to say about the impression so celebrated a woman 
produced upon me, when I was speaking of her salo7i in a 
previous page. But they may be just as well said here. 
Of the beauty for which she was famed throughout Europe, 
of course little remained when I saw her in 1835. But 
the grace, which was in a far greater degree unique, re- 
mained in its entirety. I think she was the most grace- 
fully moving woman I ever saw. The expression of her 



AT PARIS. 197 

face bad become perhaps a little sad, but it was sweet, at- 
tractive, full of the promise of all good things of heart 
and mind. If I were to say that her management of her 
salon might be compared in the perfection of its tactical 
success with that of a successful general on the field, it 
might give the idea that management and discipline were 
visible, which would be a very erroneous one. That the 
perfection of art lies in the concealment of it, was never 
more admirably evidenced than in her "administration" 
as a reine da salon. A close observer might perceive, or, 
perhaps, rather divine only, that all was marshalled, or- 
dered, and designed. Yet all was, on the part at least of 
the guests, unconstrained ease and enjoyment. That much 
native talent, much knowledge of men and women, and 
exquisite tact must have been needed for this perfection 
in the art of teiiir salon cannot be denied. Finally it may 
be said that a great variety of historiettes^ old and new, 
left me with the unhesitating conviction that despite the 
unfailing tribute to an eclat such as hers, of malicious in- 
sinuations (all already ancient history at the time of which 
I am writing), Madame Recamier was and had always 
been a truly good and virtuous Christian woman. 

Miss Clarke, also, as has been said an inmate of the 
Abbaye-aux-Bois, and a close friend of her celebrated 
neighbor, I became intimate with. She was an eccentric 
little lady, very plain, brimful of talent, who had achieved 
the wonderful triumph of living, in the midst of the choic- 
est society of Paris, her own life after her own fashion, 
which was often in many respects a very different fashion 
from that of those around her, without incurring any of 
the ridicule or anathemas with which such society is wont 
to visit eccentricity. I remember a good-naturedly re- 
counted legend, to the effect that she used to have her 
chemises, which were constructed after the manner of 
those worn by the grandmothers of the present genera- 
tion, marked with her name in full on the front flap of 
them ; and that this flap was often exhibited over the 
bosom of her dress in front ! She too was a reine de salon 
after her fashion — a somewhat different one from that of 
her elegant neighbor. There was, at all events, a greater 



198 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

and more piquant variety to be found in it. All those to 
be found there were, however, worth seeing or hearing 
for one reason or another. Her method of ruling the fre- 
quenters of her receptions might be described as simply 
shaking the heterogeneous elements well together. But 
it answered so far as to make an evening at her house un- 
failingly amusing and enjoyable. She was very, and I 
think I may say, universally popular. She subsequently 
married M. Mohl, the well-known Orientalist, whom I re- 
member to have always found, when calling upon him on 
various occasions, sitting in a tiny cabinet so absolutely 
surrounded by books, built up into walls all round him, 
as to suggest almost inevitably the idea of a mouse in a 
cheese, eating out the hollow it lived in. 

Referring to my mother's book on *' Paris and the Pa- 
risians" for those extracts from it which I have given in 
the preceding pages, I find the following passage, the sin- 
gular forecast of Avhich, and its bearing on the present 
state of things in France, tempts me to transcribe it. 
Speaking in 1835, and quoting the words of a high politi- 
cal authority, whom she had met " at the house of the beau- 
tiful Princess B " (Belgiojoso), she writes: "'You 

know,' he said, * how devoted all France was to the em- 
peror, though the police was somewhat tight, and the con- 
scriptions heavy. But he had saved us from a republic, 
and we adored him. For a few days, or rather hours, we 
were threatened again five years ago by the same terrible 
apparition. The result is that four millions of armed men 
stand ready to protect the prince who chased it. Were it 
to appear a third time, which Heaven forbid ! you may 
depend upon it, that the riionarch icho should next ascend 
the throne of Frayice might play at " lejeu de quilles^'' with 
his subjects and no one he foimd to complahi.'' " (My ital- 
ics.) On the margin of the page on which this is printed 
my mother has written in the copy of the book before me, 
" Vu et approuve. Dec. 10, 1853. F T." 

The mention of the Princess Belgiojoso in the above 
passage reminds me of a memorable evening which I 
spent at her house, and of my witnessing there a singular 
scene, which at the present day may be worth recounting. 



AT PARIS. 199 

The amnsement of the evening consisted in hearing 
Liszt and the princess play, on two pianos, the whole of 
the score of Mozart's " Don Giovanni." The treat was a 
delightful one ; but I dare say that I should have forgot- 
ten it but for the finale of the performance. No sooner 
was the last note ended than the nervous musician swooned 
and slid from his seat, while the charming princess, in 
whom apparently matter was less under the dominion of 
mind, or at least of nerve, was as fresh as at the begin- 
ning. 

My month at Paris, with its poor thirty times twenty- 
four hours, was all too short for half of what I strove to 
cram into it. And of course I could please myself with 
an infinitude of recollections of things and places, and oc- 
casions, and above all, persons, who doubtless contributed 
more to the making of that month one of the pleasantest 
I have to look back on than any of the celebrities whom 
I had the good-fortune to meet. But it may be doubted 
whether any such rambling reminiscences would be equally 
pleasing to my readers. 

There is one anecdote, however, of a well-remembered 
day, which I must tell, before bringing the record of my 
first visit to Paris to a conclusion. 

A picnic party — rather a large one, and consisting of 
men and women of various nationalities — had been organ- 
ized for a visit to the famous and historic woods of Mont- 
morenci. We had a delightful day, and my memory is 
still, after half a century, crowded with very vivid re- 
membrances of the i^laces and persons, and things done 
and things said, which rendered it such. But as for the 
places, have they not been described and redescribed in 
all the guide-books that were ever written ? And as for 
the persons, alas ! the tongues that chattered so fast and 
so pleasantly are still for evermore, and the eyes that 
shone so brightly are dim, if not, as in most instances, 
closed in their last sleep ! But it is only with an incident 
that formed i\\Q finale of our day there that I mean to 
trouble the reader. 

Thackeray, then an unknown young man, with whom I 
that day became acquainted for the first time, was one of 



200 WHAT I KEMEMBER. " 

our party. Some half-dozen of us — the boys of the party 
— thmking that a day at Moiitmorenci could not be passed 
selo7i les prescriptio7i8 without a cavalcade on the famous 
donkeys, selected a number of them, and proceeded to 
urge the strongly conservative animals probably into 
2)laces, and certainly into paces, for which their lifelong 
training had in no wise prepared them. A variety of 
struggles between man and beast ensued with divers 
vicissitudes of victory, till at last Thackeray's donkey, 
which certainly must have been a plucky and vigorous 
beast, succeeded in tossing his rider clean over his long 
ears, and, as ill-luck would have it, depositing him on a 
heap of newly-broken stones. The fall was really a severe 
one, and at first it was feared that our picnic would have 
a truly tragic conclusion. But it was soon ascertained 
that no serious mischief had been done beyond that the 
mark of which the victim of the accident bore on his face 
to his dying day. 

I think that when I climbed to the banquette of the 
Lille diligence to leave Paris, on the morning of the 7th 
of June, 1835, it was the first time that the prospect of a 
journey failed in any way to compensate me for quitting 
what I was leaving behind. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

AT BRUGES. AT IIADLEY. 

I LEFT Paris a day or two before my father, mother, 
and sisters, though bound for the same destination — 
Bruges. My object in doing so appears to have been to 
get a sight of some of the towns of French Flanders by the 
way. But I was not many days after them in reaching 
the Chateau d'Hondt, outside the Porte St. Pierre at 
Bruges ; and there I remained, with the exception of sun- 
dry visits to Ostend, and two or tliree rambles among the 
Flemish cities, till the 3d of October. 

One used to go from Bruges to Ostend in those days by 
" Torreborre's " barge, which was towed by a couple of 
horses. There was a lumbering but very roomy diligence 
drawn by three horses abreast. But the barge, though 
yet slower than the diligence, was the pleasanter mode of 
making the journey. The cost of it, I well remember, 
was one franc ten centimes, which included (in going by 
the morning barge, which started, if I remember rightly, 
at six A.M.), as much bread-and-butter and really excellent 
cafe, cm lait as the traveller chose to consume — and I 
chose in those days to consume a considerable quantity. 
What the journej'' cost without any breakfast, I forget, if 
I ever knew. I fancy no such contingency as any passen- 
ger declining his bread-and-butter and coffee was contem- 
plated, and that the charge was always the same whether 
you took breakfast or not. It was not an unpleasant man- 
ner of travelling, though specially adapted for the inmates 
of the Castle of Indolence. The cabin was roomy and 
comfortably furnished, and infinitely superior to the ac- 
commodations of any of the Dutch treJcschuyts of the 
present day. One took one's book with one. And a cigar 
on the well-seated cabin roof v»^as in excellent keeping with 
9* 



202 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

the lazy smoothness of the movement, and the flat, sleepy 
monotony of the banks. 

And these visits to Ostend were very pleasant. Consul 
Fauche's hospitable door was always open to me, and there 
was usually sure to be something pleasant going on withjjn 
it — very generally excellent music. I have already spoken 
of Mrs. Fauche's charming voice. Any pleasant English, 
who might be passing through, or spending the bathing 
season at Ostend, were sure to be found at the consul's — 
especially if they brought voices or any musical disposi- 
tions with them. But Mary Fauche herself was in those 
days a sufficient attraction to make the whitest-stone even- 
ing of all, that when no other visitor was found there. 
JVbctes ccenceque Detlm / 

But those pleasant Ostend days were, before the summer 
ended, overshadowed by a tragedy which I will not omit 
to record, because the story of it carries a valuable warn- 
ing with it. 

We had made acquaintance at Paris with a Mrs. Mack- 
intosh and her daughter, very charming Scotch people. 
Mrs. Mackintosh was a widow, and Margaret was her only 
child. She was an extremely handsome girl, nineteen years 
of age, and as magnificent a specimen of young woman- 
hood as can be conceived. " More than common tall," she 
showed in her whole person the development of a Juno, 
enhanced by the vigor, elasticity, and blooming health of 
a Diana. She and her mother came to Ostend for the bath- 
ing season. Margaret was a great swimmer ; and her de- 
light was to pass nearly the whole of those hot July days 
in the water. Twice, or even thrice every day she would 
return to her favorite element. And soon she began to 
complain of lassitude, and to lose her appetite and the 
splendor of her complexion. Oh ! it was the heat, which 
really only the constant stimulus of her bath and swim 
could render tolerable. She was warned that excess in 
bathing, especially in salt water, may sometimes be as 
dangerous as any other excess, but the young naiad, who 
had never in her life needed to pay heed to any medical 
word or warning, would not believe, or would not heed. 
And before the September was over we followed poor 



AT BRUGES. 203 

Margaret Mackintosh to the little Ostend cemetery, killed 
by over-bathing as decidedly as if she had held her head 
under water. 

This sad tragedy brought to a gloomy end a season 
which had been, if not a verj^ profitable, a very amusing 
one. There was a ci-devant Don Quixote sort of a look- 
ing man, a Count Melfort, whose young and buxom wife 
boasted some strain of I forget what noble English blood, 
and who used to give the consul good dinners such as he 
particularly affected, which his wife was neither asked nor 
cared to share, though the ladies as well as the gentlemen 
were excellent good friends. There was a wealthy Col- 
onel Dickson who also used to give dinners, at one of 
which, having been present, I remember the host fussing 
in and out of the room during the quarter of an hour be- 
fore dinner, till at last he rushed into the drawing-room 
with his coat-sleeves drawn up to his elboAvs, horror and 
despair in his mien as he cried, " Great Heaven ! the cook 
has cut the fins off the turbot !" If any who partook of 
that mutilated fish survive to this present year of grace 
(which, I fear, is hardly likely to be the case) I am sure 
they will recall the scene which ensued on the dreadful 
announcement. There was the very pretty and abnormal- 
ly silly little banker's wife, who supplied my old friend, 
Captain Smithett, with billets cloux and fun, and who used 
to adapt verses sent her by a still sillier youthful adorer 
of her own to the purpose of expressing her own devotion 
to quite other swains. 

It was a queer and not very edifying society, exceed- 
ingly strange, and somewhat bewildering to a lad fresh 
from Oxford who was making his first acquaintance with 
Continental ways and manners. All the married couples 
seemed to be continually dancing the figure of chassee 
croisez, and I, who had no wife of my own, and was not 
yet old enough to know better, thought it extremely 
amusing. 

When October came, and I had not heard anything from 
Birmingham of the appointment to a mastership in the 
school there, for which I had been all this time waiting, 
I thought it was time to look up my Birmingham friends 



204 WHAT I KEMEMBER. 

and see how matters stood there. At Birmingham I found 
that the governors of King Edward's School were still 
shilly-shallying ; but I heard enough to convince me that 
no new master would be appointed till the very fine new 
building which now ornaments the town, but was then in 
course of construction, should be completed. 

Having become convinced of this, in which it eventually 
turned out that I was right, it only remained to me to re- 
turn to Bruges, with the assurance from Dr. Jeune and 
several of the governors that I and nobody else should 
have the mastership when the appointment should be 
made. I returned to Bruges, passing one day with the 
dear Grants at Harrow, and an evening with my brother 
Anthony in London by the way, and reached the Chateau 
d'llondt on the 15th of October, to find ray father very 
much worse than I had left him. He was in bed, and 
was attended by the Dr. Herbout of whom I have before 
spoken. But he was too evidently drawing towards his 
end ; and after much suffering breathed his last in the 
afternoon of the 23d of October, 1835. On the 25th I fol- 
lowed his body to the grave, close to that of my brother 
Henry, in the cemetery outside the Catherine Gate of the 
town. 

The duty was a very specially sad one. When I fol- 
lowed my mother to the grave at Florence many years 
afterwards my thoughts were far from being as painfully 
sad, though she was, I fear, the better-loved parent of the 
tw^o. She died in a ripe old age after a singularly happy, 
though not untroubled, life, during many years of which 
it was permissible to me to believe that I had had no 
small share in ministering to her happiness. It was oth- 
erwise in the case of my father. He v/as, and had been, I 
take it, for many years a very unhappy man. All had 
gone wrong with him ; misfortunes fell on him, one on the 
back of the other. Yet I do not think that these mis- 
fortunes were the real and efficient causes of his unhappi- 
ness. I do not see what concatenation of circumstances 
could have made him happy. He was in many respects a 
singular man. Ill-health and physical suffering, of course, 
are great causes of an unhappy life ; but all suffering in- 



AT BRUGES. 205 

valids are not unhappy. My father's mind was, I think, 
to a singular degree under the dominion of his body. The 
terrible irritability of his temper, which sometimes in his 
latter years reached a pitch that made one fear his reason 
was, or would become, unhinged, was undoubtedly due to 
the shattering of his nervous system, caused by the habitual 
use of calomel. But it is difficult for one who has never had 
a similar experience to conceive the degree in which this 
irritability made the misery of all who were called upon 
habitually to come into contact with it. I do not think that 
it would be an exaggeration to say that for many years no 
person came into my father's presence who did not forth- 
with desire to escape from it. Of course, this desire was 
not yielded to by those of his own household, but they 
v>^ere none the less conscious of it. Happiness, mirth, cour 
tentment, pleasant conversation, seemed to fly before him 
as if a malevolent spirit emanated from him. And all the 
time no human being was more innocent of all malevolence 
towards his fellow-creatures ; and he was a man who would 
fain bave been loved, and who knew that he was not loved, 
but knew neither how to manifest his desire for affection 
nor how to conciliate it. 

I am the more convinced that bodily ailment was the 
causa caiisans of most, if not of all, of his unhappy idio- 
.syncrasy, that I have before me abundant evidence that as 
a young man he was beloved and esteemed by his contem- 
poraries and associates. I have many letters from college 
friends, fellows of New College, his contemporaries, sev- 
eral of them thanking him for kindnesses of a more or less 
important kind, and all written in a spirit of high regard 
and esteem. 

What so grievously changed him? I do not believe 
that he was soured by pecuniary misfortune, though he 
had more than enough. His first great misfortune — the 
marriasre of his old widower uncle, whose heir he was to 
have been — was, 1 have the means of knowing, borne by 
him well, bravely, and with dignity. I believe that he was 
destroyed mind and body by calomel, habitually used dur- 
ing long years. 

Throuorhout life he was a laborious and industrious 



206 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

man. I have seen few things of the kind with more of 
pathos in it than his persevering attempt to render his 
labor of some vakie by compiling a dictionary of ecclesi- 
astical terms. He had quite sufficient learning and suffi- 
cient industry to have produced a useful book upon the 
subject if he had only had the possibility of consulting the, 
of course, almost innumerable necessary authorities. The 
book was published in quarto by subscription, and two or 
three parts of it had been delivered to the subscribers 
when death delivered him from his thankless labor and 
his subscribers from further demands on their purses. I 
do not suppose that any human being purchased the book 
because they wished to possess it. And truly, as I have 
said, it was a pathetic thing to see him in his room at 
Chateau d'Hondt, ill, suffering, striving with the abso- 
lutely miserable, ridiculously insufficient means he had 
been able with much difficulty to collect, to carry on his 
work. He was dying — he must, I think, have known that 
he was ; he had not got beyond D in his dictionary; all 
the alphabet was before him, but he would not give up; 
he would labor to the last. My mother was laboring hard, 
and her labor was earning all that supplied very abun- 
dantly the needs of the whole family. And I cannot help 
thinking that a painful but not ignoble feeling urged my 
poor father to live at least equally laborious days, even 
though his labor was profitless. 

Poor father ! My thoughts, as I followed him to the 
grave, were that I had not done all that I might have 
done to alleviate the burden of unhappiness that was laid 
upon him. Yet, looking back on it all from the vantage- 
ground of my own old age (some fifteen years greater than 
that which he attained) I do not see or think that any 
conduct of mine would have made matters better for him. 

My father's death naturally made an important change 
in my mother's plans for the future. The Chateau d'Hondt 
was given up, adieus were said, not without many an re- 
voirs, to many kind friends at Bruges, and more especially 
at Ostend, and we left Belgium for England. After some 
time spent in house-hunting, my mother hired a pleasant 



AT HADLEY. 207 

house with a good garden on the common at Hadley, near 
Barnet, and there I remained with her, still awaiting my 
Birmingham preferment, all that winter and the following 
spring. The earlier part of the time was saddened by the 
rapid decline and death of my younger sister, Emily. We 
knew before leaving Bruges that there was but a slender 
hope of saving her from the same malady which had been 
fatal to my brother Henry. But the medical men hoped, 
or professed to hope, that much might be expected from 
her return to her native air. But the mark of the cruel 
disease was upon her, and very rapidly after our estab- 
lishment at Hadley she sank and painlessly breathed her 
last. 

Poor little Emily ! She was a very bright espilgle 
child, full of fun and high spirits. There is a picture of 
her exactly as I remember her. She is represented with 
flowing flaxen curls and wide china-blue eyes, sitting, with 
a brown holland pinafore on, before a writing-desk and 
blowing a prismatically-colored soap-bubble. The writing 
copy on the desk lying above the half-covered and neg- 
lected page of copy-book bears the legend "Study with 
determined zeal." 

Her youngest child had ever been to my mother as the 
apple of her eye, and her loss was for the passing day a 
crushing blow. But, as usual with her, her mind refused 
to remain crushed, any more than the grass is perma- 
nently crushed by the storm wind that blows over it. She 
had the innate faculty and tendency to throw sorrow off 
when the cause of it had passed. She owed herself to the 
living, and refused to allow unavailing regret for those 
who had been taken from her to incapacitate her for pay- 
ing that debt to the utmost. 

And once again, as was usual with her, her new home 
became a centre of social enjoyment and attraction for 
all, especially the young, who were admitted to it. I do 
not remember that, with the exception of the family of 
the rector, Mr. Thackeray, we had many acquaintances at 
Hadley. I remember a bit of fun, long current among us, 
which was furnished by the reception my mother met with 
when returning the call of the wife of a wealthy distiller 



208 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

resident in the neighborhood. The lady was of abnormal 
bulk, and when my mother entered the room in which she 
was sitting, she said, " Excuse me, ma'am, if I keep my 
chair, I never raise. But I am glad to see you — glad to 
see anybody," with much emphasis on the last word. I 
wish every caller was received with as truthful an expres- 
sion of sentiments. 

Our society consisted mainly of friends staying in the 
house, or of flying visitors from London. As usual, too, 
my mother soon gathered around her a knot of nice girls, 
who made the house bright. For herself she seemed al- 
ways ready to take part in all the fun and amusement 
that was going; and was the first to plan dances, and 
charades, and picnics, and theatricals on a small and un- 
pretending scale. But five o'clock of every morning saw \ 
her at her desk ; and the production of the series of nov- 
els, which was not brought to a conclusion till it had 
reached the hundred and fifteenth volume, though it was 
not begun till she was past fifty, never ceased. 

The Christmas was, I remember, a very merry one. We 
were seeing a good deal of a young fellow-clerk of my 
brother's in the secretary's office at the post-office, who 
was then beginning to fall in love with my sister Cecilia, 
whom he married not long afterwards. He was then at 
the beginning of a long official life, from which he retired 
some years ago as Sir John Tilley, K.C.B. Among others 
of our little circle, I especially remember Joseph Henry 
Green, the celebrated surgeon, Coleridge's literary execu- 
tor, who first became known to us through his brother-in- 
law, Mr. Hammond, who was in practice at Hadley. Green 
was an immensely tall man, with a face of no beauty, but 
as brightly alive with humor as any I ever saw. He was 
a delightful companion in a walk ; and I remember to the 
present hour much of the curious and out-of-the-way in- 
formation I picked up from him, mainly on subjects more 
or less connected with his profession — for he, as well as I, 
utterly scouted the stupid sink-the-shop rule of conversa- 
tion. I remember especially his saying of Coleridge, apro- 
pos of a passage in his biography which speaks of the 
singular habit (noticed by his amanuensis) that he had of 



AT HADLEY. 209 

occupying his mind with the coming passage, which he 
was about to dictate, while uttering that with which the 
writer was busy, that he (Green) had frequently observed 
the same peculiarity in his conversation. 

Some few of our guests came to us from beyond the 
Channel, among them charming Mrs. Fauche, with her 
lovely voice and equally lovely face, whose Ostend hospi- 
talities my mother was glad to have an opportunity of 
returning. 

Among these visitors from the other side of the Chan- 
nel, I remember one elderly lady of the Roman Catholic 
faith, and a strict observer of its precepts, who was pleased 
to express a very strong approbation of a certain oyster 
soup which made its appearance one day at my mother's 
table. She w^as charmed at the idea of being able to eat 
such soup for a maigre dinner, and begged that the receipt 
might be written out for her. " Oyster soup ! Just the 
thing for a Friday !" So the mode of preparing the de- 
sired daint}^ was duly written out for her. But her face 
was a study for a physiognomist when she read the first 
line of it, to the effect that she was to " Take of prime 
beef^'' so much. Oyster soup, indeed ! 

It was a pleasant time — so pleasant that I am afraid 
that I did not regret, perhaps so much as I ought to have 
done, the continued delay of the Birmingham appointment 
for which I was all this time waiting. But pleasant as it 
was, its pleasantness was not sufficient wholly to restrain 
me from indulging in that propensity for rambling which 
has been with me the ruling passion of a long lifetime. 

It was in the spring following that merry Christmas 
that I found time for a little tour of about three weeks in 
Normandy. The reader need not fear that I am going to 
tell him anything of all I did and all I saw, though every 
detail of it seemed to me at the time worthy of minute 
record. But it has all been written and printed some 
scores of times since those days — by myself once among 
the rest — and may now be dismissed wdth a " See guide- 
books 2^ctssim.^^ The expenses of my travel, accurately 
recorded, I have also before me. There, indeed, I might 
furnish some facts which would be new and surprising to 



210 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

tourists of the present day, but they would only serve to 
make him discontented with his generation. 

There is one anecdote, however, connected with this 
little journey which I must relate. I was returning from 
southern Normandy and reached Caen without a penny in 
my i^ocket. My funds, carefully husbanded as they had 
been, had sufficed to carry me so far and no farther. 
There were no such things as telegrams or railways in 
those days ; and I had nothing for it but to go to a hotel 
and there remain till my application to Hadley for funds 
could be answered — an affair of some ten or twelve days 
as things then were. While I was waiting and kicking 
my heels about the old Norman city, from which I had 
already extracted all the interest it could afford me, I 
lounged into the shop of a bookseller, M. Mancel. I re- 
visited him on a subsequent occasion, and find the record 
of this second visit in the first of two volumes which I 
wrote, and entitled A Summer in Brittany. There I find 
that M. Mancel is " the publisher of numerous works on 
the history and antiquities of Normandy. . . . M. Mancel 
has also an extensive collection of old books on Norman 
history; but the rarest and most curious articles are con- 
gregated into a most bibliomaniacal-looking cabinet, and 
are not for sale." 

Well, this was the gentleman into whose very tempting 
shop I strayed with empty pockets. He was extremely 
civil, showed me many interesting things, and, finding 
that I was not altogether an ignoramus as regarded his 
sj^ecialty, observed ever and anon, " That is a book which 
you ought to have !" "That is a work which you will 
find very useful !" till at last I said, " Very true ! There 
are two or three books here that I should like to have ; 
but I have no money !" He instantly begged me to take 
any book or books I should like to buy, and pay for them 
v>^hen I got to London. " But," rejoined I, " I don't know 
when I shall get to London, for I have no money at all. 
I reached Caen with my jDurse empty, and am stranded 
here !" M. Mancel thereupon eagerly begged me to let 
him be my banker for my immediate needs, as well as for 
the price of any volumes I chose to purchase. And though 



AT HADLEY. 



211 



he had never seen my face or heard my name before, he 
absohitely did furnish me with money to reach home, and 
gave me credit for some two or three pounds' worth of 
books, it being arranged that I should, on reaching Lon- 
don, pay the amount to M. Dulau in Soho Square. 

A few years ago, on passing through Caen, I went to the 
oki book shop ; but M. Mancel had long since gone to join 
the majority, and his place knew him no more. His succes- 
sor, however, on my explaining to him the motive of my 
visit, remarked, with a truly French bow, " My predeces- 
sor seems to have been a good physiognomist, monsieur !" 

I returned to Hadley to find my mother eagerly occu- 
pied with the scheme of a journey to Vienna, and a book 
as the result of it. She had had, after the publication of 
her book on "Paris and the Parisians," some idea of under- 
taking an Italian tour, but that was now abandoned in 
favor of a German journey, whether on the suggestion of 
her publisher, or from any other cause of preference, I do 
not know. Of course I entered into such a scheme heart 
and soul. My only fear now was that news of my ap- 
pointment to a mastership at Birmingham might arrive 
in time to destroy my hopes of accompanying my mother. 
But no such tidings came; on the contrary, there seemed 
every reason to suppose that no new master would be ap- 
pointed till after the following Christmas holidays. My 
mother was as anxious as I was that I should be free to 
act as her courier, for, in truth, she could hardly dispense 
with some such assistance ; and I alone remained who 
could give it to her. My sister Cecilia was to accompany 
my mother. She wished also to take with her M. Hervieu, 
the artist who illustrated her former books; and I obtained 
her permission to ask an Oxford friend to make one of the 
party. We were thus a party of five, without counting 
my mother's maid, an old and trusted servant, the taking 
of whom, however, she subsequently considered so great 
a mistake that she never fell into it on any other occasion. 

My delight at the prospect of such a journey was in- 
tense. I surrounded myself forthwith with an amazing 
supply of maps and guide-books, and was busy from morn- 
ing to night with the thoroughly congenial task of study- 
ing and preparing our proposed route. 



CHAPTER XV. 

GERMAN^ TOUR. IN AUSTRIA. 

That I started on this occasion even more than on any 
other with the greatest delight " goes without saying." A 
longer and more varied journey than I had ever before 
enjoyed was before me. All was new, even more entirely 
new to the imagination than Paris ; and my interest, curi- 
osity, and eagerness were great in proi:)ortion. We trav- 
elled by way of Metz, Strasbourg, and Stuttgardt, and, 
after reaching the German frontier, by Lohnkutscher, or 
vetturino — incredibly slow, but of all modes of travelling 
save the haquenee des Cordeliers the best for giving the 
traveller some acquaintance with the country traversed 
and its inhabitants. 

A part of the journey was performed in a yet slower 
fashion, and one which was still richer in its opportunities 
for seeing both men and things. For we descended the 
Danube on one of those barges which ply on the river, 
used mainly for cargo, but also occasionally for passen- 
gers. When I look back upon that part of our expedition 
I feel some astonishment at not only the hardihood of my 
mother and sister in consenting to such an enterprise, but 
more still at my own — it really seems to my present no- 
tions — almost reckless audacity in counselling and under- 
taking to protect them in such a scheme. 

Wliethcr any such boats still contiuQe to navigate the 
Danube I do not know. I should think that quicker and 
better modes of transporting both human beings and goods 
have long since driven them from their many time secular 
occupation. In any case it is hardly likely that any Eng- 
lish travellers will ever again have such an experience. 
The Lohnkutscher, with his thirty or forty miles a day 
and his easy-going, lotus-eating-like habitudes, is hardly 
like to tempt the traveller who is wont to grumble at the 



IN AUSTRIA. 213 

tediousness of an express-train. But a voyage on a Dan- 
ube carrier-barge would be relegated to the category of 
those things which might be done, " could a man be se- 
cure that his life should endure As of old, for a thousand 
long years," but which are quite out of the question in any 
other circumstances. 

Here is the account which my mother gives of the boat 
on which we were about to embark at Ratisbon for the 
voyage down the river to Vienna. 

" We start to-morrow, and I can hardly tell you whether 
I dread it or wish for it most. We have been down to 
the river's bank to see the boat, and it certainly does not 
look very promising of comfort. But there is nothing 
better to be had. It is a large structure of unpainted deal 
boards, almost the whole of which is occupied by a sort 
of arklike cabin erected in the middle. This is very near- 
ly filled by boxes, casks, and bales ; the small portion not 
so occupied being provided with planks for benches and 
a species of rough dresser placed between them for a table. 
This we are given to understand is fitted up for the express 
accommodation of the cabin passengers." 

In point of fact, we had, as I remember, no fellow-pas- 
sengers in any part of our voyage. I take it that nobody, 
save perhaps the peasants of the villages on the banks of 
the stream, for short passages from one of them to the 
other, ever thought of travelling by these barges even in 
those days. They were, in fact, merely transports for 
merchandise of the heavier and rougher sort. The ex- 
treme rudeness of their construction, merely rough planks 
roughly nailed together, is explained by the fact that they 
are not intended ever to make the return voyage against 
the stream, but, on arriving at Vienna, are knocked to 
pieces and sold for boarding. 

"But the worst thing I saw," continues my mother, "is 
the ladder which, in case of rain, is to take us down to 
this place of little ease. It consists of a plank with sticks 
nailed across it to sustain the toes of the crawler who 
would wish to avoid jumping down seven or eight feet. 
The sloping roof of the ark is furnished with one bench 
of about six feet long, from which the legs of the brave 



214 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

souls who sit on it dangle down over the river. There is 
not the slightest protection whatever at the edge of this 
abriibtly sloping roof, which forms the only deck ; and 
nothing but the rough, unslippery surface of the deal 
planks, of which it is formed, with the occasional aid of a 
bit of stick about three inches long nailed here and there, 
can prevent those who stand or walk upon it from gently 
slidincr down into the stream. . . . Well ! we have dete7'- 
mined, one and all of us, to navigate the Danube between 
Ratisbon and Vienna ; and I will neither disappoint my- 
self nor ray party from the fear of a fit of vertigo or a 
scramble down a ladder." 

But if the courage of the ladies did not fail them, mine, 
as that of the person most responsible for the adventure, 
did. And I find that, on the day following that on which 
the last extract was written, my mother writes : 

"At a very early hour this morning T. [Tom] was up 
and on board, and perceiving — by a final examination of 
the deck, its one giddy little bench, and all things apper- 
taining thereto — that we should inevitably be extremely 
uncomfortable there, he set about considering the ways 
and means by which such martyrdom might be avoided. 
He at last got hold of the Schiffmeister, which he had 
found impossible yesterday, and by a little persuasion and 
a little bribery induced him to have a plank fixed for us 
at the extreme bow of the boat, which we can not only 
reach without difficulty, but have a space of some nine or 
ten feet square for our sole use, on condition of leaving it 
free for the captain about five minutes before each land- 
ing. This perch is perfectly delightful in all respects. 
Our fruit, cold meat, wine, bread, and so forth are stowed 
near us. Desks and drawing -books can all find place; 
and, in short, if the sun will but continue to shine as it 
does now, all will be well. . . . Our crew are a very mot- 
ley set, and as we look at them from our dignified retire- 
ment they seem likely to aiford us a variety of picturesque 
groujis. On the platforms, which project at each end of 
the ark, stand the men — and the women too — who work 
the vessel. This is performed by means of four immense 
oars protruding lengthwise \i. e., in a fore-and-aft direc- 



IN AUSTRIA. 215 

tion], two in front and two towards the stern, by which 
tlie boat is steered. Besides these, there are two others 
to row with. These latter are always in action, and are 
each worked by six or eight men and women, the others 
being only used occasionally, when the boat requires steer- 
ing. It appears that there are many passengers who work 
for their passage [but this I take to have been inference 
only], as the seats at the oars are frequently changed, and 
as soon as their allotted task is done they dip down into 
the unknown region bej^ond the ark and are no more seen 
till their turn for rowing comes round again. I presume 
the labor, thus divided, is not very severe, for they appear 
to work with much gayety and good-humor, sometimes 
singing, sometimes chatting, and often bursting into shouts 
of light-hearted laughter." 

It was a strange voyage : curious, novel, and full of 
never-failing interest ; luxurious even in its way, in many 
respects ; which may now be considered an old-world ex- 
perience ; which probably has never been tried since, and 
certainly will never be tried again, however many wander- 
ing young Englishmen (of whom there are a hundred now 
for every one to be met with in those days) might fancy 
trying it. No danger vdiatever of the kind which my 
mother appears to have anticipated threatened any of the 
party; but the adventure was not without danger of an- 
other kind, as the sequel showed. 

Of course, all the people with whom we were brought 
into contact — the captain and crew of the boat, the river- 
side loungers at the landing-places, the hosts and house- 
holds of the little inns in the small places at which the 
boat stopped every night (it never travelled save by day- 
light) — were all mystified, and had all their ideas of the 
proprieties and the eternal fitness of things outraged by 
the phenomenon of a party of English ladies and gentle- 
men — supposed by virtue of ancient and well-recognized 
reputation to be all as rich as Croesus, and who were at 
all events manifestly able to pay for a carriage — choosing 
such a method of travelling. Nor had English wanderers 
at that time earned the privilege since accorded to their 
numcrousness, of doing all sorts of strange things unques- 



216 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

tioned on the score of tlie well-known prevalent insanity 
of the race. All who came within sight of us were ut- 
terly puzzled at the unaccountableness of the phenome- 
non. And one does not mystify the whole of a somewhat 
rude population without risking disagreeables of various 
sorts. 

On looking back on the circumstances from my present 
lofty and calm observatory I am disposed to Avonder that 
nothing worse betided us than the one adventure of which 
I am about to speak. But, as I remember, the people 
generally were, if somewhat ruder and rougher than an 
English population of similar status, upon the whole very 
kindly and good-natured. 

But at one place — a village called Pleintling — we did 
get into trouble, which very nearly ended tragically. The 
terms upon which we were to be housed for the night and 
the price to be paid for our accommodation of all sorts 
had been settled overnight, and the consciousness that we 
were giving unusual trouble induced us to pay without 
grumbling such a price for our beds and supper and break- 
fast as the host had assuredly never received for his food 
and lodging in all his previous experience. But it was 
doubtless this very absence of bargaining which led our 
landlord to imagine that he had made a mistake in not 
demanding far more, and that any amount might be had 
for asking it from so mysterious a party, who parted, too, 
so easily with their money. So, as we "were stepping on 
board the next morning, he came down to the water's 
edge, and with loud vociferation demanded a sum more 
than the double of that which we had already paid him. 
The ladies, and, indeed, all the party save myself, who 
was the paymaster, had already gone on board, and I was 
about to follow, unheeding his demands and his threats, 
when he seized me by the throat, and, dragging me back- 
ward, declared in stentorian tones that he had not been 
paid. I sturdily refused to disburse another kreutzer. 
The other men, v/ho had gone on board, jumped back to 
my assistance. But suddenly, as if they had risen from 
the earth, several other fellows surrounded us and dragged 
down my friends. The old landlord, beside himself with 



IN AUSTRIA. 



217 



rage, lifted an axe which he had in his hand and was 
about to deal me a blow which would probably have re- 
lieved the reading world of this and many another page. 
But my mother, shrieking with alarm, had meantime be- 
sought the captain of the boat to settle the matter by pay- 
ing whatever was demanded. He also jumped on shore 
just in time, and released us from our foes, and himself 
from further delay, by doing so. 

At the next place at which we could go on shore we 
made a complaint to the police officials ; and it is not 
without satisfaction, even after the lapse of half a cent- 
ury, that I am able to say that a communication from the 
police in an Austrian town some days subsequently, and 
after we had crossed the Bavarian frontier, informed us 
that the old scoundrel at Pleintling had not only been 
made to disgorge the sum he had robbed us of, but had 
been trounced as he deserved. I suspect that he had im- 
agined, from the strangeness of our party and our mode of 
travelling, that there were reasons why we should not be 
inclined to seek any interview with the officers of the po- 
lice. 

With that sole exception our voyage from Ratisbon to 
Vienna was a prosperous, and, on the whole, pleasant one, 
varied only by not unfrequently recurring difficulties oc- 
casioned by shoals and sandbanks, when all hands, save 
the non-working party in the bow, would take to the wa- 
ter in a truly amphibious fashion to drag the boat off. 

But I must not be led by these moving accidents by 
flood and field to forget a visit paid to the sculptor Dan- 
necker in his studio at Stuttgardt. There is in my moth- 
er's book an etching by M. Hervieu of the man and place. 
I remember well the affectionate reverence with which he 
uncovered for us his colossal bust of Schiller, as described 
by my mother, and the reasons which he assigned (mistak- 
en, as they appeared to me, but it is presumptuous in ine 
to say so) for making it colossal. Schiller had been his 
lifelong friend, and these reasons, whether artistically 
good or not, were, at all events, morally admirable and pa- 
thetically touching, as given by the old man while look- 
ing up at his work with tears in his octogenarian eyes. I 
10 



218 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

do not think the reproduction of the bust in M. Hervieu's 
etching is a very happy one, but I can testify to the full- 
length portrait of the aged sculptor being a thoroughly 
lifelike one. It is the old man himself. He died a year 
or two after the date of our visit. 

Uhland, too, we visited, and Gustav Schwab. Of the 
former I may say literally vidi tantum^ for I could speak 
then no German, and very few words now, and TJhland 
could speak no other language. And our interview is 
worth recording mainly for the case of the noticeable fact 
that such a man, holding the position he did and does in 
the literature of his country, should at that day have been 
unable to converse in French. 

Gustav Schwab, though talking French fluently, and, as 
I remember, a little English also, impressed me as quint- 
essentially German in manner, in appearance, and ways of 
thinking. He was one of the kindliest of men, contented 
with you only on condition of being permitted to be of 
service to you, and at the end of half an hour making you 
somehow or other feel as if he must have been an old 
friend, if not in your present, at least in some former state 
of existence. 

My journey among these southern Germans left me with 
the impression that they are generally a kindly and good- 
natured people. A little incident occurred at Tubingen 
which I thought notably illustrated this. The university 
library there is a very fine one ; and, while the rest of our 
party were busied with some other sight-seeing, I went 
thither, and applied to the librarian for some information 
respecting the departments in which it was strong, its rules, 
etc. He immediately set about complying with my wishes 
in the most obliging manner, going through the magnifi- 
cent suite of rooms with me himself, and pausing before 
the shelves wherever he had any special treasure to show. 
All of a sudden, without any warning, just as we were 
passing through the marble jambs of a doorway from one 
room to another, my head began to swim ; I lost conscious- 
ness, and fell, cutting my head against the marble suffi- 
ciently to cause much bloodshed. When I recovered my 
senses I found the librarian standinsr in consternation over 



IN AUSTRIA. 219 

me, and his i^retty young wife on her knees, with a basin 
of water, bathing my head. She had been summoned 
from her dwelling to attend me, and there was no end to 
their kindness. I never experienced such a queer attack 
before or since. I suppose it must have been occasioned 
by too much erudition on an empty stomach. 

Our route to Vienna was a very devious one, including 
southern Bavaria, Salzburg, and great part of the Tyrol. 
But I must not indulge in any journalizing reminiscences 
of it. Were I to do so in the case of all the interesting 
journeys I have made since that day, how many volumes 
would suffice for the purpose? When calling, the other 
day, only two or three months ago, on Cardinal Massaia, 
at the Propaganda in Rome, in order to have some con- 
versation with him respecting his thirty-five years' mis- 
sionary work in Africa, on returning from which he re- 
ceived the purple from Leo XIIL, he obligingly showed 
me the MS. which he had prepared from his recollection 
of the contents of the original notes, unfortunately de- 
stroyed during his imprisonment by hostile tribes in Af- 
rica, and which is now being printed at the Propaganda 
Press in ten volumes quarto. His eminence was desirous 
that it should be translated into English, and published in 
London, with the interesting illustrations he brought home 
with him, and which adorn the Roman edition. But as 
the wish of his eminence was that it should be published 
unabridged (!) I was obliged to tell him that I feared he 
would not find a London publisher. We parted very good ; 
friends, and on taking my leave of him he said, pressing 
my hand kindly, that we should shortly meet again in 
heaven ; which, considering that he knew he was talking 
to a heretic, I felt to be a manifestation of liberal feeling 
worthy of note in a cardinal of the Church of Rome. 

Will the kind reader, bearing in mind the recognized 
and almost privileged garrulity of old age, pardon the 
chronology-defying introduction of this anecdote here, 
which was suggested to me solely by the vision of what 
my reminiscences would extend to if I were to treat of all 
my wanderings up and down this globe in extenso. 

The latter part of our voyage was especially interesting 



220 WHAT i REMEMBER. 

and beautiful, but tantalizing from the impossibility of 
landing on every lovely spot which enticed us. Never- 
theless, we at last found ourselves at Vienna with much 
delight, and our first glimpses of the city disposed us to 
acquiesce heartily in the burden of the favorite Viennese 
folk-song, "^5 ist nur ein Kaiser stadt^ es ist nur em 
Wie7ir 

I remember well an incident which my mother does not 
mention, but which seemed likely to make our first debut 
in the Kaiserstadt an embarrassing one. There was, in 
some hand-bag belonging to some one of the party, an old, 
forgotten pack of playing-cards, which the examining offi- 
cer of the customs pounced on with an expression of almost 
consternation on his face. 

" Oh, well, throw them away," said the spokesman of 
our party, airily, " or, if the regulations require it, we will 
pay the duty, though we have not the least desire to retain 
possession of them." 

But this we soon found did not meet the case by any 
means. We had been guilty of a serious misdemeanor 
and offence against the law by having such things (unde- 
clared, too) among our baggage ! There must be a report 
and a written petition, setting forth, with due contrition 
and humble peccavi admissions, our lamentable ignorance, 
and perhaps the enormity might be condoned to a foreigner ! 
After a little talk, however, and the incense of a little con- 
sternation on our faces, duly offered to the official Jove 
(who entirely spurned any offering of another sort), the 
said Jove wrote the petition for us himself, carried it some- 
where behind the scenes, and shortly announced that it was 
benignly granted ; as I believe, by himself ! The accursed 
thing was ceremoniously destroyed before our eyes, and 
we were free to walk forth into the streets of the Kaiser- 
stadt. 

I revisited Vienna two or three years ago, and found 
that " ein Wien " had become at least three ! If the in- 
crease and changes of London and Paris have made my 
early recollections of those cities emphatically those of a 
former age, the changes at Vienna, though, of course, 
smaller in absolute extent, have yet more entirely meta- 



IN AUSTRIA. 221 

morpliosed the character of the place. The abolition of 
the wall, which used to shut in the exclusive little city, 
and placed between it and the suburbs not only a material 
barrier, but a gulf such as that which divided Dives from 
Lazarus, has changed the social habitudes and even the 
moral characteristics of the inhabitants. 

In the days of my first visit, now just a little more than 
fifty years ago, nobody who was anybody would have 
dreamed of living on the outside of the sacred barrier of 
the wall any more than a member of the fashionable world 
of London would dream of living to the eastward of Tem- 
ple Bar. I think, indeed, that the former would have been 
more utterly out of the question than the latter. I remem- 
ber that, even in the case of foreigners like ourselves, it 
was deemed, in accordance with the best advice we could 
procure on the subject, necessary, or at least expedient, 
that we should find lodgings in the city, despite the ex- 
ceeding difficulty and the high price involved in procuring 
them. The division of the society into classes, still more 
marked in Vienna than, probably, in any other city of 
Europe, at that time almost amounted to a division into 
castes ; and, in the case of the higher aristocracy, to have 
lived in any one of the suburbs would assuredly have in- 
volved a loss of social caste. 

Mainly this arose, of course, from the inappellable law 
of fashion that so it should be. But in part, also, it prob- 
ably arose from the little social inconveniences arising from 
mere distance. The society of Vienna at that day — soci- 
ety jt>ar excellence — was a very small one. Everybody knew 
everybody, not only their pedigree and all their quarterings 
(very necessary to be known), but the men and women 
themselves personally. I forget entirely what were the 
introductions which placed my mother and her party at 
once in the very core of this small and exclusive society. 
But we did find ourselves so placed, and that at once. 
Probably the general notion in England was then, and 
may be still, that the aristocratic society of Vienna would 
be less likely to open its doors to one who had no title 
whatever to enter them save a literary reputation than the 
corresponding classes in any other European capital. But, 



222 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

whatever was the " Open Sesame " my mother possessed, 
the fact was that all doors were open to her with the most 
open-handed hospitality. And, as I have said, to know 
one was, even in the case of a stranger, pretty nearly 
equivalent to knowing them all. 

The by far greater number of this small society of no- 
bles were, as was to be expected, wealthy men ; some, more 
especially the Hungarians, were such, even if estimated by 
English standards. But there were some among them who 
were very much the reverse. And my opportunities of 
observation were abundantly sufficient to enable me to 
perceive, without any fear of being mistaken, that the 
terms of intimacy and equality upon which these latter 
lived with their wealthier neighbors were no whit affected 
by their comparative irapecuniosity. One single lady of 
very noble birth I well remember, who to a great pres- 
sure of the res angusta domi added no small spice of ec- 
centricity ; but there was no mansion so magnificent that 
did not open its doors very widely to her. No fete was 
complete without her. She always wore a turban, and al- 
ways carried it about with her in her pocket. And I have 
seen her pause in the midst of a splendid entrance-hall, 
with half a dozen lackeys standing around, while she took 
her turban from her pocket, adjusted it on her head, and 
changed her shoes. 

The ladies of the grand monde in Vienna in those days 
had the queer habit of writing no notes. Their invitations 
and the answers to them, and the excuses, or any other 
communications arising from the social intercourse of 
the day, were all sent by word of mouth by footmen. 
Whether the highest hon ton required an affectation of 
not being able to write, I cannot say ! But such was the 
practice. 

Another specialty consisted in a practice of the young 
men of the same world. Every man of them retained in 
his special pay and service one of the (very excellent) 
hackney coaches of the city, which he always expected to 
find ready for his service, and the driver of which was 
trusted by him as much, or more perhaps, than a man is 
in the habit of trusting his own servant. 



IX AUSTRIA. 223 

The social division between the different castes — be- 
tween the noble and the non-noble — was absolute in those 
days ; and, of course, both parties were the losers in sun- 
dry respects by such separation. But the results were 
not bad in all respects. One was an exceeding simplicity 
and absence of any affectation of finery or morgue on the 
part of the noble class, and a corresponding easy-going 
freedom from the small forms of social ambition on the 
part of the non-noble. There was among the latter no 
attempt or thought of attempting to enter the noble so- 
ciety. It was out of the question ; and, as far as I could 
see, such entry did not appear to be an object of ambition, 
or the impossibility of it to occasion either heart-burning 
or jealousy. In the case of the ladies of the deux mondes, 
the separation was absolute and without exception. But 
I was told that in some few cases the young men of the 
upper class might be seen in the houses of certain of their 
non-noble fellow-citizens, but never with any reciprocity 
of toleration. In respect of mere wealth and luxury in 
the manner of living, there were many bourgeois families 
on a par, and in many cases on far more than a par, with 
those of the nobles. And no doubt it frequently oc- 
curred that the social law which forbade all intercourse 
between tlie two septs was felt to be as inconvenient 
and as much a matter of regret on one side of the barrier 
as on the other. But, noblesse oblige, and the law was not 
transgressed. 

In the case of foreigners, however, or at least of English 
foreigners, we were very soon given to understand that 
the law in question was not applicable. We were perfect- 
ly free to make acquaintances in either world, and some 
of the most valued friends we made in Vienna, and some 
of the pleasantest hospitalities we accepted, were found in 
bourgeois houses. I remember two different instances of 
a very amusing curiosity on the part of certain noble ladies, 
which prompted them to avail themselves of our chartered 
liberty in the matter, for the obtaining of tidings of the 
ways and manners of the inmates of certain houses, which 
there was no possibility of their ever having an opportu- 
nity of observing for themselves. But on ransacking my 



224 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

memory for instances of the kind, I must say that all that 
occur to me refer to curiosity of the upper respecting the 
nether world, and that I do not recollect any vice versd 
cases. 

I have said that the rule of exclusion as regards all that 
part of the Vienna world not nobly born was absolute. 
But if absoluteness can be conceived as ever becoming 
more absolute, the social law did so in the case of Jewish 
families. These were numerous, and many of them in 
respect of wealth, and more in respect of culture, were on 
a par with the best and highest portion of the Viennese 
society. I remember one Jewish family in particular, 
consisting of a widow and her daughter and her niece, 
with whom we became intimately acquainted, and in 
whom and whose surroundings we found a level of high 
culture (taking that word in its largest extension to all 
that goes to form the idiosyncrasy of a human being), far 
in advance of anything we met with among their social 
superiors. 

In fact, the grand monde of that far-distant day in 
Vienna was frivolous, unintellectual, and, I am afraid I 
must say, uneducated to a remarkable degree. It had its 
own peculiar charm, which consisted in the most perfectly 
high-bred tone of manner combined with complete sim- 
plicity, the absolute absence of any sort of affectation 
whatever, and great good-nature. But in all my experi- 
ence of them there was not to be found a salo7i among 
them of equal social attraction to that of my above-men- 
tioned Jewish friends. 

But all this refers to the social conditions of a day 
which, as my recent visits to Vienna have shown me, is 
one passed away and gone. It belongs to the days when 
*' Vater Franz " was, or, to be accurate, had only two years 
previously ceased to be, the idol of Austrian, and especial- 
ly Viennese, loyalty and affection. The most striking in- 
stances of the devotion of all classes of the population to 
their emperor were constantly narrated to me. I specially 
remember the tale of one occasion, when the emperor had 
remained shut up in the palace for three or four days — or 
perhaps the period was somewhat longer — because he had 



IN AUSTRIA. 225 

caught a cold. A cloud seemed to have passed over the 
blue Vienna sky. The occasion of his first drive through 
the streets of the city after his little indisposition was an 
ovation. The people filled the streets, and hung about his 
carriage. Market-women poked their faces in at the win- 
dow to assure themselves that " Vater Franz " was restored 
to them none the worse for his confinement. It was, to the 
best of my remembrance, on every Thursday, at that time, 
that it had been the emperor's practice to devote a certain 
number of hours in the day to receiving any one of his 
subjects who had notified in the proper quarter a desire 
to speak with him. But might not some Socialist or Ni- 
hilist, or other description of radical, have easily shot him 
at one of those entirely unguarded interviews ? Aye ! but 
I am writing of half a century ago, before such things and 
persons had appeared upon the scene. And assuredly the 
possibility of such a catastrophe had never entered into 
the brain of any man, woman, or child in the Kaiser- 
stadt. 

There was one among the many acquaintances we made 
at Vienna who belonged in no wise to any division of its 
society, but who was, like ourselves, to be met with among 
them all. This was old Cramer the pianist. I took a 
great liking to him. The mingled simplicity, honhomie, 
shrewdness, and old-world courtesy of the old man de- 
lighted me. He was full of old-world stories, generally 
ending any anecdote of some one of the many notable per- 
sonages he had known with a sigh, and " Well, peace to 
his manes P^ pronounced as one syllable, as I have men- 
tioned in an earlier page. For old John Cramer had lived 
in the days before the schoolmaster had gone " abroad " 
so widely as in these latter times. The old maestro had 
just written a monody to the memory of Malibran, then 
recently lost to the world of music prematurely. " It is 
full of feeling," writes my mother, " and, as I listened to 
this veteran pianist, as he performed for me his simj^le 
and classic little composition, and marked the delicacy 
and finish of his style, unencumbered by a single move- 
ment in which the conceptions of a harmonious genius are 
made to give way before the meretricious glory of active 
10* 



226 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

fingers, I felt at the very bottom of my heart that I was 
rococo, incorrigibly rococo, and that such I should live and 
die." 

Another specialty, which in those days gave to Vienna 
much of the physiognomy which made it different in out- 
ward appearance from any other of the great capitals of 
Europe, and which would not be observed there at the 
present time, was caused by the heterogeneousness of the 
countries which compose the empire, and the very motley 
appearance of the specimens of all of them which might 
be found in the capital. A Parisian tells you in France 
that a provincial in the streets of Paris is as recognizable 
at a glance as if he were ticketed on the forehead. And 
so he may be to a Parisian. But the eccentricities of his 
appearance are not such as to impart any variety to the 
moving panorama in the streets of Paris as it appears to 
a stranger. The Breton, the Provengal, the Bearnais 
makes himself look, when he visits Paris, as much like a 
Parisian as he can, and flatters himself, no doubt, that he 
succeeds perfectly. But Croatians, Bohemians, wild-look- 
ing figures from Transylvania might be seen in the streets 
of Vienna, precisely as they might have been seen in their 
own distant homes. Strange and not a little sinister-look- 
ing groups of Hungarian gypsies, encampments outside 
and at the foot of the walls of Bohemian wagoners, caf- 
taned Jews from the distant parts of Galicia, all added to 
the strangeness and much to the picturesqueness of the 
city. I remember one especial group, the extreme barbar- 
ism of whose appearance, incredible filthiness, and wild, 
picturesque, but very forbidding physiognomies, particu- 
larly attracted my attention. I was told that they were 
gypsies from Croatia. 

On the whole it is — or, rather, I should say was — evident 
that one has travelled far eastward to reach Vienna, and 
the whole physiognomy of the place is modified by that 
fact. 

I am unwilling to close this chapter of my Vienna rem- 
iniscences without mentioning a lady whose very ex- 
ceptional histrionic talent had impressed me as vividly as 
it did my mother, who has given an honorable place in 



IN AUSTRIA. 227 

her volumes to Madame Hettich. I subsequently became 
intimate with her very charming daughter in Italy, and it 
is from her that I learned the fact that her mother had 
been the first actress to personate Goethe's "Gretchen" 
on the stage. Considerable doubt had been felt as to the 
expediency of the attempt. But Madame Rettich made 
it — not for the first time at Vienna, but at some provincial 
theatre — with entire success. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

IN AUSTRIA — {continued). 

Of all my reminiscences of Vienna, and those I saw- 
there, the most interesting are those connected with my 
introduction to Prince Metternich. 

The present generation is perhaps hardly aware — or not 
habitually so — of the largeness of the space Metternich 
occupied in the political world half a century ago. It is 
not too much to say that Europe in those days thought as 
much about Metternich as it does in these days about Bis- 
marck. Of course the nature of the two men, as of the 
circumstances with which they were called on to deal, is 
far as the poles asunder. But on the European stage-^ 
not, of course, on the English — no actor of that day could 
compete with Prince Metternich in the importance of the 
position assigned to him by the world in general, as no 
actor of this day can with Prince Bismarck. 

It is hardly enough to say, as is said above, that the 
nature of the two men was as far as the poles asunder; it 
was singularly contrasted. To both of them the salus 
patricB has ever been the suprema ex ; and both of them, 
with increasingly accepted wisdott, have sought that su- 
preme end in the strengthening of the principle of author- 
ity. The history of human affairs has not yet sufficiently 
unfolded itself for it to be possible to say in this year of 
grace 1887 whether they have done so with very differ- 
ent measures of success. But it is very curious to mark 
the similarity thus far existing between the two great min- 
isters, chancellors, and statesmen, combined with such 
very marked (though perhaps in fact more or less super- 
ficial) differences between the two men. 

Prince Bismarck has not been thought, even by those 
who have most thoroughly admired and applauded his 
fortiter in re, to have very successfully combined with it 



IN AUSTRIA. 22§ 

the suaviter in modo. The habit of clothing the iron 
hand with a velvet glove has not been considered to be 
among his characteristics. And these qualities were very 
pre-eminently those of the other all-powerful minister. 

And the outward and bodily presentment of the two 
men was as contrasted and as expressive of this difference 
as that of two high-born gentlemen could well be. I saw 
recently, in Berlin, a portrait by Lembach of the great 
North German chancellor. It is one of those portraits 
which eminently accomplishes that which it is the highest 
excellence of every great portrait to achieve, in that it 
gives those who look at it with some faculty of insight, 
not only that outward semblance of the man, which all 
can recognize, but something more, which it is the artist's 
business to reveal to those who have not the gift of read- 
ing it for themselves. That portrait, in common with 
most of those by the great masters in the art of portrait- 
ure, reveals to you, with an instantly recognized truthful- 
ness, the interior and intrinsic nature of the man, with a 
luminousness which your owm gaze on the living person 
would not achieve for you. I have also before me a por- 
trait of Prince Metternich, made at the time of which I 
am writing, by M. Hervieu, in crayons, for my mother. 
And without, of course, claiming either for the artist or 
for the style of work such power as belongs to the por- 
trait of which I have been speaking, I may say that it 
does very faithfully and expressively give you the pre- 
sentment of a man in whom strength of w^ill, tenacity of 
purpose, and high intellectual power are combined with 
suave gentleness of manner and an air of high-bred cour- 
tesy. 

TJiat is the man whose lineaments I look on in the 
sketch, and that is the man with whom I had many op- 
portunities of being in company, and had on several oc- 
casions the high honor of conversing. Whether it might 
be possible for a man devoid of all advantage of feature 
to produce on those brought into contact with him the 
same remarkable impression of dignity, the consciousness 
of high station, and perfection of courtly bearing com- 
bined with a pellucid simplicity of manner, I cannot say. 



230 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

But it is true that all this was rendered more possible in 
the case of Metternich by great personal handsomeness. 
He was, of course, when I saw him, what may be called 
an old man — a white-headed old man — but I doubt if at 
any time of his life he could have been a better-looking 
man. 

My mother notes in her book on "Vienna and the Aus- 
trians " that, as we were returning from a dinner at the 
house of the English ambassador. Sir Frederic Lamb, 
where we had just met Metternich for the first time, I 
observed that he was just such a man as my fancy painted 
Sir William Temple to have been, and that she thought 
the illustration a good one. And I don't think that any 
subsequent knowledge or reflection would lead me to can- 
cel it. 

He was a man of middle height, slenderly made rather 
than thin, though carrying no superfluous flesh ; upright, 
though without the somewhat rigid uprightness which 
usually characterizes military training to the last, how- 
ever far distant the training time may have been ; and 
singularly graceful in movement and gesture. He must 
have been a man of sound body and even robust consti- 
tution, but he did not look so at the time of which I am 
speaking. Not that he had the appearance or the manner 
of a man out of health ; but his extreme refinement and 
delicacy of feature seemed scarcely consistent with bodily 
strength. I remember a man — the old Dr. Nott spoken 
of in the first chapter of this book — who must have been 
about the same age with Metternich when I first saw him, 
who equalled him in clear-cut delicacy and refinement of 
feature, who was certainly a high-bred gentleman, not 
altogether ignorant of the ways and manners of courts, 
and who was emphatically a man of intellectual pursuits 
and habits. But there all equality and similarity between 
the two men ends. Good, refined, elegant Dr. Nott pro- 
duced no such impression on those near him as the Aus- 
trian statesman did. There must have been therefore a 
something in the latter beyond all those advantages of 
person and feature with which he was so eminently en- 
dowed. And this "something" I take to have been pro- 



IN AUSTRIA. 231 

duced partly by native intellectual power, and partly by 
the long possession of quite uncontested authority. 

Upon that first occasion I had no opportunity of hear- 
ing any word from Metternich save one gracious phrase 
on being presented to him. He took my mother in to 
dinner. I was seated at a far distant part of the huge 
round table, where I could see, but not hear. And it was 
the fashion in Vienna for people to leave the house at 
which they had been dining almost immediately after 
taking their cup of coffee. But before the party sepa- 
rated it had been arranged that we were to dine at the 
minister's house on the following Monday. 

But all this time I have said no word of the Princess 
Metternich, who also dined with Sir Frederic Lamb on 
that, to me, memorable day. In one word, she was one 
of the most beautiful women I ever looked on. She was 
rather small, but most delicately and perfectly formed in 
person, and the extreme beauty of her face was but a part, 
and not the most peerless part, of the charm of it. To 
say that it sparkled with expression, and an expression 
which changed with each changing topic of conversation, 
is by no means enough. Every feature of her face was 
instinct with meaning and intelligence. The first impres- 
sion her face gave me was that of a laughter-loving and 
7nuti7ie disposition. But ray mother, who saw much of 
her — more, of course, than it was possible for her to see 
of the chancellor (especially while the princess was sitting 
for her portrait by M. Hervieu for her, during which sit- 
ting my mother, by her express stipulation, was always 
with her), and who learned to love her dearly, testified 
that there was much more behind ; that her unbounded 
affection and veneration for her husband was not incom- 
patible with the formation of thoughtful opinions of her 
own upon the questions which were then exercising the 
minds of politicians, as well as all the higher topics of 
human interest. 

I dined at Metternich's table on the day mentioned 
above as well as on sundry other occasions ; on some of 
which I was fortunate enough to make one of the little 
circle enjoying his conversation, Of course the dinner- 



232 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

parties at the prince's house were affairs of much magnifi- 
cence and splendor. But I had, on more than one occa- 
sion, the higher privilege of dining with hira enfamille. 

On both and all occasions, whether it was a grand ban- 
quet of thirty persons or more, or a quite unceremonious 
dinner en famille, the prince's practice was the same, and 
was peculiar. 

He did not in any wise partake of the spread before 
him. He had always dined previously at one o'clock. 
But he had a loaf of brown bread and a plate of butter 
put before him ; and, while his guests were dining, he 
occupied himself with spreading and cutting a succession 
of daintily thin slices of bread-and-butter for his own 
repast. 

Victor Emmanuel used similarly to dine in the middle 
of the day, and at his state banquets used to take no more 
active part than was involved in honoring them with his 
presence. But Metternich, I think, would not have said 
what my friend G. P. Marsh, the United States minister, 
once told me Victor Emmanuel said to him on one occasion. 
Mr. Marsh, as dean of the dii)lomatic body (it was before 
any of the great powers sent ambassadors to the court of 
the Quirinal) was seated next to his majesty at table. In- 
numerable dishes were being carried round in long suc- 
cession, when the king, turning to his neighbor with a 
groan, said, "Will this never come to an end?" I have 
no doubt Marsh cordially echoed his majesty's sentiments 
on the subject. 

The words of men who have occupied positions in any 
degree similar to that of Prince Metternich are apt to be 
picked up, remembered, and recorded, when in truth the 
only value of the utterances in question is to show that 
such men do occasionally think and speak like other mor- 
tals. And my note-books are not without similar evidences 
of gohemoucherie on my own part. But there is one sub- 
ject on which I have heard Metternich speak words which 
really are worth recording. That subject was the Empe- 
ror Napoleon Bonaparte. 

Of course on such a topic the Austrian statesman might 
have said much that he was not at liberty to say ; and 



IN AUSTRIA. 233 

tbere was also much that he might have said which could 
not have found place in one half ^hour's conversation. The 
particular point upon which I heard him speak was the 
celebrated interview at which the emperor lost his tem- 
per because he could not induce Austria to declare war. 

Metternich described the way in which the emperor, 
with the manners of the guardroom rather than those of 
the council-chamber, suddenly and violently tossed his 
cocked-hat into the corner of the room, "evidently ex- 
pecting that I should pick it up and present it to him," 
said the old statesman ; " but I judged it better to ignore 
the action and the intention altogether, and his majesty, 
after a minute or two, rose and picked it up himself." 

He went on to express his conviction that all this dis- 
play of passion on the emperor's part was altogether af- 
fected, fictitious, and calculated ; and said that similar 
manifestations of intemperate violence were by no means 
infrequently used by the emperor wath a view to produce 
calculated effects, and were often more or less successful. 

It w^ould be a great mistake to suppose that the most 
cynical observer could have detected the slightest shade 
of bitterness in the words or the manner of Prince Met- 
ternich. On that field of battle, at all events, the honors 
did not fall to the share of Napoleon. And his aged ad- 
versary spoke of the encounter with the amused pleasantry 
and easy smile of a veteran who recounts passages at arms 
in which his part has been that best worth telling. 

But with a graver manner he went on to say, that the 
most unj^leasant part of the circumstance connected with 
dealing with Napoleon arose from the fact that he was 
not a gentleman in any sense of the word, or anything 
like one. Of course the prince, with his unblemished six- 
teen quarterings, was not talking of anything connected 
with Napoleon's birth. And I doubt w^hether he may 
have been aw^are that Napoleon Bonaparte was techni- 
cally gentle by virtue of his descent from an ancient Tus- 
can territorial noble race. Metternich, in expressing the 
opinion quoted, was not thinking of anything of the kind. 
He was speaking of the moral nature of the man. In these 
days, after all that has since that time been published on 



234 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

the subject, the expression of Metternich seems almost 
like the enunciation of an accepted and recognized truism. 
Nevertheless, even now the judgment on such a point, of 
one who had enjoyed (no, certainly not enjoyed, but we 
will say undergone) so much personal intercourse with 
the great conqueror, is worth recording. 

My mother has given an account of the same conver- 
sation, which I have here recorded, in the second volume 
of her book on "Vienna and the Austrians." Her account 
tallies with mine in all essentials (I did not read it — in 
this half-century — till after I had written the above sen- 
tences) ; but she relates one or two circumstances which 
I have omitted ; and she aj^parently did not hear what the 
prince said afterwards about Napoleon as a gentleman — 
or perhaps it was said upon another occasion, which I can- 
not assert may not have been the case. 

One point of my mother's narrative should not be 
omitted. Metternich, observing that it was impossible 
for any human being to have heard what passed between 
him and Napoleon, but that everybody had read all about 
it, said that Savary relates truly the incident of the hat, 
which must have been told him by Napoleon himself. This 
is very curious. 

Another amusing anecdote recounted by Metternich one 
evening, when my mother and myself, together with only 
a very small circle of habitues were present, I remember 
well, and intended to give my own reminiscences of it 
in this place. But I find the story so well told by my 
mother, and it is so well worth repeating, that I will re- 
produce her telling of it. 

"During the hundred days of Napoleon's extraordinary 
but abortive restoration, he found himself compelled by 
circumstances, bon gre mal gre, to appoint Fouche minister 
of police. About ten days after this arch-traitor was so 
placed, Prince Metternich was informed that a stranger 
desired to see him. He was admitted, and the prince 
recognized him as an individual whom he had known as 
an employe at Paris. But he now appeared under a bor- 
rowed name, bringing only a fragment of Fouche's hand- 
writing, as testimony that he was sent by him. His mis- 



IN AUSTRIA. 235 

sion he said was of the most secret nature, and, in fact, 
only extended to informing the prince that Fouche was 
desirous of offering to his consideration propositions of the 
most important nature. The messenger declared himself 
wholly ignorant of their purport, being authorized only to 
invite the prince to a secret conference through the me- 
dium of some trusty envoy, who should be despatched to 
Paris for the purpose. The prince's reply was, ' You must 
permit me to think of this.' The agent retired, and the 
Austrian minister repaired to the emperor, and recounted 
what had passed. 'And what do you think of doing?' 
said the emperor. 

"'I think,' replied the prince, 'that we should send a 
confidential agent, not to Paris, but to some other place 
that may be fixed upon, who shall have no other instruc- 
tions but to listen to all that the Frenchman, who will 
meet him there, shall impart, and bring us faithfully an 
account of it.' 

" The emperor signified his approbation ; ' And then,' 
continued the prince, ' as we were good and faithful allies, 
and would do nothing unknown to those with whom we 
were pledged to act in common, I hastened to inform the 
allied sovereigns, who were still at Vienna, of the arrival 
of the messenger, and the manner in which I proposed to 
act.' The mysterious messenger was accordingly dis- 
missed with an answer purporting that an Austrian, call- 
ing himself Werner, should be at a certain hotel in the 
town of Basle, in Switzerland, on such a day, with in- 
structions to hear and convey to Prince Metternich what- 
ever the individual sent to meet him should deliver. This 
meeting took place at the spot and hour fixed. The dip- 
lomatic agents saluted each other with fitting courtesy, 
and seated themselves vis-d-viSj each assuming the attitude 
of a listener. 

*' ' May I ask you, sir,' said the envoy from Paris, at 
length, ' what is the object of our meeting ?' 

"'My object, sir,' replied the Austrian, 'is to listen to 
whatever you may be disposed to say.' 

" ' And mine,' rejoined the Frenchman, ' is solely to hear 
what you may have to communicate.' 



236 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

"Neither tlie one nor the other had anything further 
to add to this interesting interchange of information, and 
after remaining together long enough for each to be satis- 
fied that the other had nothing to tell, they separated with 
perfect civility, both returning precisely as wise as they 
came. 

" Some time after the imperial restoration had given 
way to the royal one in France, the mystery was explained. 
Fouche, cette revolution i7icarnee, as the prince called him, 
no sooner saw his old master and benefactor restored to 
power than he imagined the means of betraying him, and 
accordingly despatched the messenger,who presented him- 
self to Prince Metternich. Fouche was minister of police, 
and probably all the world would have agreed with him 
in thinking that if any man in France could safely send 
off a secret messenger it was himself. But all the world 
would have been mistaken, and so was Fouche. The 
argus ej^es of Napoleon discovered the proceeding. The 
first messenger was seized and examined on his return. 
The minister of police was informed of the discovery, and 
coolly assured by his imperial master that he would prob- 
ably be hanged. The second messenger was then des- 
patched by Napoleon himself with exactly the same in- 
structions as the envoy who met him from Vienna, to the 
effect that he was to listen to all that might be said to 
him, and when questioned himself, confess, what was the 
exact truth, that all he knew of the mission on which he 
came was that he was expected to remember and repeat 
all that he should hear." 

On the 30th of November in that year I witnessed the 
by far most gorgeous pageant I ever saw — for I was not 
in Westminster Abbey on the 21st of June, 1887 — the in- 
stallation of eleven Knights of the Golden Fleece. As a 
pageant, nothing, I think, could exceed the gorgeous and 
historic magnificence of this ceremony; but no " Kings of 
the Isles brought gifts," nor was the imperial body-guard 
composed of sovereign princes or their representatives. 
In significance^ that show and all others such, even the 
meeting of the Field of the Cloth of Gold itself, is eclipsed 
by the ever-memorable day which England has just seen. 



IN AUSTRIA, 237 

But it was not only a very grand but a very interesting 
sight, the whole details of which may be found by those 
interested in such matters very accurately described in the 
volume by my mother which I have so often quoted. 

On the very next day I saw another sight which I think 
it probable no subsequent sight-seer in Vienna during all 
the half-century that has elapsed since that day has seen, 
or any will see in the future. It was a sight more mon- 
strously contrasted with the scene I had yesterday wit- 
nessed than it could well enter into the human mind to 
conceive. It was a visit to the vast, long-disused cata- 
combs under the cathedral church of St. Stephen. It was 
then about sixty years, as I was told — now more tlian a 
hundred — since these vaults were used as a place of sepul- 
ture. Here, as in many other well-known instances, the 
special peculiarities of soil and atmosphere prevent all the 
usual processes of decay, and the tens of thousands of 
corpses which have been deposited there — very many un- 
coffined and unshrouded during the visitation of the 
plague in 1713 — have become to all intents and purposes 
mummies. They retain not only the form of human beings, 
but in many cases the features retain the ghastly expres- 
sion which was their last when the breath of life left them. 
The countless forms, which never apparently from the day 
they were deposited there had been subjected to any sort 
of arrangement whatever, lay in monstrous confused heaps, 
mingled with shattered remains of coffins. The skin in 
every case had become of the consistency of very thick 
and tough leather, not quite so thick as that used for the 
sole of a stout shoe, but a good deal thicker than what is 
generally used for the upper leather even of the stoutest. 
There was not the slightest disagreeable odor in any part 
of the vaults. In the course of a long life I have seen 
very many strange sights, but never any one to match 
that in weird strangeness and impressive horror. If any 
sight on earth merits the degraded epithet "awful," it 
must be that of those fearsome catacombs. 

What I have written here conveys but a very imperfect 
notion of all that we saw and felt during our progress 
through that terrible succession of vaults. But I abstain 



238 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

from clironiclinp: the siorhts of this charnel-house for the 
same reason that I refrained from any attempt at describ- 
ing the cloth of gold and the velvets and the silks and 
satins of the previous day. The detailed description of 
them may all be found in my mother's book, in the forti- 
eth chapter of which the reader so inclined may sup full 
of horrors to his heart's content. I will content myself 
with testifying to the perfect accuracy and absence of ex- 
aggeration in the account there given. 

My mother expresses disapproval of the authorities who 
permit such an exhibition, and she is very vague as to the 
means by which we obtained admission to it. Nor does 
my memory furnish any clear information upon this point, 
but I have a strong impression that it was all an affair of 
bribery managed "under the rose" (what a phrase for 
such an exploit !) by back-stairs influence in some way. I 
do not think that the first comer, with however large a fee 
in his hand, could have caused the door of that chamber 
of horrors to be opened to him. There are, it is true, sun- 
dry wprds and incidents in my mother's account which 
seem W indicate that the showman guide who attended 
us was in the habit of similarly attending others ; but I 
am persuaded that my mother was in error in supposing, 
if she did suppose, that to be the case. Unquestionably 
the man was at home in the gruesome place, and well 
acquainted with all the parts of it, but I have reason to 
be persuaded that his familiarity with it arose simply from 
the habit of pillaging the remains of the coffins for fire- 
wood ! 

Not long after this memorable expedition to the cata- 
combs I received a communication from Birmingham 
which rendered it necessary for me to leave Vienna and 
turn my face homeward. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

AT BIRMINGHAM. 

I LEFT Vienna by the carriage wbich carried the im- 
perial mail, shortly before Christmas, in very severe 
weather. It would be impossible to construct a more 
comfortable carriage for the use of those to whom speed 
is no object. It carried only two passengers and tlie 
courier, and was abundantly roomy and well cushioned. 
It carried, of course, also all the mails from Hungary and 
from Vienna to the north and westward, including those 
to Munich and Paris and London. And to the best of my 
recollection all these despatches, printed as well as written, 
were carried in the hind boot of our conveyance. If they 
were not there I can't guess where they were. 

I remember that I was tremendously great-coated, hav- 
ing, besides my "box-coat," a "buifalo robe," which I had 
brought back with me from America, and I have no recol- 
lection of suffering at all from cold. We proceeded in 
very leisurely fashion ; and I well remember the reply of 
the courier to my question, how long we were to remain 
at the place at which we were to dine, given with an air 
of mild surprise at my thinking such a demand necessary. 
*' Till we have done dinner," said the courier — " Bis wir 
gespeist haben " / Tlie words seem still to echo in my ears ! 
To me, whose experiences were of the Quicksilver "tnail ! 

When we had done dinner, and he asked me with lei- 
surely courtesy if I had dined well, he said, in answer to 
my confessing that I could have wished nothing more, un- 
less it were a cup of coffee, if perchance there were one 
ready, " No doubt the hostess will make us one. It is 
best fresh made" ! And so, while the imperial mail and 
all the Paris and London letters and the post - horses 
waited at the door, the coffee was made and leisurely 
discussed. 



240 WHAT I EEMEMBER. 

I will upon this occasion also spare the reader all guide- 
book chatter, and pass on to the arrival of myself and 
the friend who Avas with me at Dover, which arrival was 
a somewhat remarkable one. 

We had travelled by Antwerp, which I wished to revisit 
for the sake of the cathedral, and crossed from Ostend, 
where also I was not sorry to pass a day. 

We had a long and nasty passage, but at last reached 
Dover to find the whole town and the surrounding hills 
under snow, and to be met by the intelligence that all 
communication between Dover and London was inter- 
rupted. Even the boat which used to ply between Do- 
ver and the London Docks would not face the abomina- 
ble weather, and was not running. There was nothing 
for it but to take up our abode at the King's Head (no 
Lord Warden in those days !), and wait for the road to be 
opened. 

We waited one day, two days, with no prospect of any 
amelioration of our position. On the third day two young 
Americans who were in the house, equally weather-bound 
with ourselves, and equally impatient of their imprison- 
ment, assured us that in their country the matter would 
speedily be remedied, and declared their determination of 
getting to Canterbury on a sledge. We had heard by that 
time that from Canterbury to London the road was open. 
The people at the King's Head assured us that no such at- 
tempt had any chance of succeeding. But, of course, our 
American friends considered that to be a strictly profes- 
sional opinion, and determined on starting. We agreed to 
share the adventure with them. Four of the best post- 
horses we could find in Dover were hired, a couple of 
postboys, whose pluck was stimulated by promises of high 
fees, were engaged, and a sledge was rigged under the per- 
sonal supervision of our experienced friends. 

On the fourth day we got ourselves and our respective 
trunks on to the sledge, and started among the ill-omened 
prognostications of our host of the King's Head and his 
friends. I think the postboys did their utmost bravely, 
but at the end of about five miles from Dover they dis- 
mounted from their floundering horses and declared the 



AT BIKMINGIIAM. 241 

enterprise an impossible one. It was totally out of the 
question, they said, to reach Canterbur}^ It would be 
quite as much as they could do to get back to Dover. 

What was to be done ? The boys were so evidently 
right that the Americans did not attempt to gainsay their 
decision. A council of war was called, the upshot of 
which was that our two American allies decided to return 
to Dover with their and our baggage and loraps^ while my 
friend and I determined at all risks to push on to Canter- 
bury on foot. We had eleven miles of bleak country be- 
fore us, which was simply one uniform undulating field 
of snow. The baffled postboys gave us many minute di- 
rections of signs and objects by which we were to endeavor 
to keep the road. We had started from Dover about nine 
o'clock in the morning. It was then not quite noon. The 
mail would leave Canterbury at ten at night for London, 
and we had, therefore, ten hours before us for our under- 
taking. 

We thought that four, or, at the outside, five, would be 
ample for the purpose, if we were ever to get to Canter- 
bury at all. But we did not reach The Fountain in that 
much-longed-for city till past eight that evening. 

It was a terrible walk. Of course at no conceivable 
rate of progression could we have been eight hours in 
walking eleven miles if we had continued to progress at 
all. But we lost the road again and again ; sometimes got 
far away from it, and fought our way back to it by the di- 
rections obtained at farmhouses or laborers' cottages, from 
people who evidently deemed our enterprise a desperate one. 
Mostly we were struggling knee-deep in snow, once or twice 
plunging into and out of drifts over our waists. We were 
not on foot quite all the time ; for once we rested in a 
hospitable cottage for an hour, when we were about six 
miles from Canterbury. Our host there, who was, I take 
it, a wagoner, strongly advised us to give it up, and offered 
to let us pass the night in his cottage. We were already 
very much beaten, and were sorely tempted to close with 
his proposal. Perhaps, if we had known that we should 
never, as was the case, see those Americans again, we should 
have done so. But much as our bodies needed rest, our 
11 



242 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

souls needed triumph more. So we turned out into the 
snow again, and — by eight o'clock did reach the hospita- 
ble Fountain. 

But we were in a sad plight, desperately wearied, a good 
deal bruised and knocked about, and as thoroughly wet 
through literally as though we had been walking in water 
instead of snow. Kest was delicious ; a hot supper was 
such delight as no "gods" had ever enjoyed. Good beds 
would have been Elysium. But — the thought of the 
next morning gave us pause. We had no rag of cloth- 
ing of any sort save the thoroughly soaked things on our 
backs. No boots or shoes. And how should we possibly 
put on again those on our feet if once they were taken 
off ? In London, if once reached, all these troubles would 
be at an end. 

Finally we decided to go on by the mall at ten that 
night. But here a fresh disappointment awaited us. 
The mail was booked full inside. There were two out- 
side places, those on the roof behind the driver, available. 
But we were dead beat, wet through to the bone, un- 
provided with any wrap of any kind, and it Avas freezing 
hard. 

But on to the mail we climbed at ten o'clock. I believe 
the good hostess of The Fountain genuinely thought our 
proceeding suicidal, and the refusal of her beds absolute- 
ly insane. 

That journey from Canterbury to London was by far 
the worst I ever made. It really was a very bad business. 
But at every change of horses I got down, and, holding on 
by the coach behind, ran as far as my breath and strength 
would allow me, and thus knocked a little warmth into 
my veins. I could not persuade my companion to do like- 
wise. He seemed to be wxaried and frozen into apathy. 
The consequence was that whereas I was after some 
twelve hours in bed not a jot the worse, he was laid up 
for a fortnight. 

Shortly afterwards I assumed my new^ duties at Bir- 
mingham. The new building had been completed, and 
was — or, rather, is, as all the world may see to the present 
day — a very handsome one. The head-master, whose as- 



AT BIRMINGHAM. 243 

sistaiit I specially was, was Dr. Jeune, wlio became subse- 
quently Bishop of Peterborough. The second master, Mr. 
Gedge, liad also an assistant named Mason. Our duties 
were to teach Latin and Greek to any of the sons of the 
inhabitants of Birmingham who chose to avail themselves 
of King Edward's benevolent foundation. None of the 
masters had anything to do with the business of lodging 
or victualling boys. The boys were all day boys, and our 
business was to teach them Latin and Greek during certain 
hours of every day. 

I soon became aware, by a strangely subtle process of 
feeling rather than observation, that my eight years' Win- 
chester experience of schoolboy life and ways had not con- 
stituted a favorable preparation for my present work. I 
felt that I was working in an atmosphere and on a material 
that was new to me. It would be absurd to imagine that 
all those sons of Birmingham tradesmen were stupider 
or duller boys than the average of our Winchester lads. 
But it appeared to me that it was far more difficult to 
teach them with any fair amount of success. They were 
no doubt all, or nearly all, the sons of men who had never 
learned anything in their lives save the elements of a 
strictly commercial education. And I felt myself tempted 
to believe that the results of heredity must extend them- 
selves even to the greater or lesser receptivity of one de- 
scription of teaching instead of another. I suppose that 
the descendant of a long line of shoemakers would be more 
readily taught how to make a shoe than how to build a 
ship. And it may be in like manner that ingeniias dicli- 
cisse fideliter artes comes more readily to a boy whose 
forefathers have for generations done the same thing than 
it would to the descendant of generations unm.oulded by 
any such discipline. 

Corporal punishment was used, and naturally had to be 
resorted to much more frequently by me than by ray su- 
perior, v/hose work was concerned with the older and bet- 
ter-conducted portion of the boys. In fact, as far as my 
recollection at the present day goes, it seems to me that 
hardly any morning or afternoon passed without the appli- 
cation of the cane. And this corporal castigation, though 



244 WHAT I KEMEMBER. 

devoid of all the judicial formality which might have 
made our Winchester "scourging" a really moral punish- 
ment if the frequency of it and the prevailing sentiment 
upon the subject both of masters and scholars had been 
other than it was, Avas in truth a very much severer inflic- 
tion as regards the absolute pain to be suffered by the 
patient. Three or four strokes with the cane over the 
palm of the hand would be very much worse than the 
perfunctory swishing with the peculiar Winchester rod. 
I do not remember that this caning was ever judicially 
used as a sentence to be executed at any future time, or 
that it was ever, for the most part, used to punish the idle- 
ness which had prevented a boy from learning his lessons 
at his home. It was used almost exclusively, as far as I 
remember, for the preservation of order and silence dur- 
ing the school hours, and the correction of the offender 
followed instantly on the commission of the offence. 

And this necessity of enforcing order among a very un- 
disciplined crew of some forty or fifty lads, of ages vary- 
ing from, perhaps, twelve to about fourteen or fifteen, was 
by far the most irksome and diflicult part of my duty. I 
was accustomed to tuition. But the cumulation of the 
office of beadle with that of teacher was new to me, and I 
did not like it. And still less did I like the constant ten- 
dency of the urgent duties of the first office to encroach 
upon those of the second. 

My scholastic experiences bad accustomed me to a state 
of things in which idleness, violence, dare-devil audacity, 
and neglect of duty had been common enough, but in 
which organized trickery and deception had been rarely 
seen. And I felt myself unfitted for the duties of a police- 
man among these turbulent Birmingham lads. I never 
saw the face of any one of them save during school hours ; 
and I remember thinking at the time that, had this been 
otherwise, I might have obtained a moral influence over at 
least some of them, which might have been more useful 
than all my efforts during school hours to force the rules 
and principles of syntax into unwilling brains, accustomed 
to the habitual defiance of them during all the remainder 
of their lives. 



AT BIRMINGHAM. 



245 



It appeared to me that I was engaged in the perpetual, 
and somewhat hopeless, task of endeavormg to manufac- 
ture silk purses out of sows' ears ; and I confess that I 
never put on my academical gown to go into school with- 
out feeling that I was going to an irksome, and, I feared, 
unprofitable labor. I tried hard to do my duty ; but I 
fear that I was by no means the right man in the right 
place. 

No preparation of any kind, beyond assuming my gown 
and trencher cap, before going into school was needed, 
and I had, therefore, abundance of leisure, during which 
I did a considerable quantity of miscellaneous reading, 
not, perhaps, altogether so unprofitable as the advocates 
of regular study devoted to some well-defined end might 
suppose. 

We endeavored — my colleague Mason and I — I remem- 
ber, to get up a debating society among the few — very 
few — young men with whom we had become acquainted. 
But it did not succeed. Young Birmingham, intent on 
making, and on its way to make, " plums " in hardware, 
did not think that *' debating " was the best way of em- 
ploying the hours that could be spared from the counting- 
house. 

There might, no doubt, have been found a better ele- 
ment of social intercourse in the younger clergy of the 
town; but they were all strongly "evangelical," which 
was at that time quite sufticient to entail an oil-and-vine- 
gar mutual repulsion between them and the young Wyke- 
hamist. And this, involving as it does a confession of a 
discreditable amount of raw young-man's prejudice, I men- 
tion as an illustration of the current opinions, feelings, and 
mental habits of the time, for, after all, I was not more 
prejudiced and more stupid than the rest of the world 
around me. 

In fact my life at Birmingham was for the most part a 
very solitary one. I used to come home tired and worn 
out to my lodgings with Mrs. Clements in New Hall 
Street; and the prospect of a lonely even.ing with my 
book, my teapot, and my pipe was not unwelcome to me, 
for it was, at least, repose and quiet after noise and tur- 



246 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

moil. Every now and then I used to dine and pass the 
evening with Dr. Jeune ; and these were my red-letter 
days. Jeune had married the daughter of Dr. Symonds, 
the warden of Wadham. She was a tall and very hand- 
some woman, as well as an extremely agreeable one. At 
first, I remember, I used to think that if she had been the 
daughter of anybody else than the " Head of a House," 
one just emerging from statu piipillari might have found 
her more charming. But this soon wore off as we got to 
know each other better. And long talks with Mrs. Jeune 
are the pleasantest — indeed, I think I may say the only 
pleasant — recollections of my life at Birmingham. 



CHAPTER XVIir. 

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 

I HELD my mastership in King Edward's School at Bir- 
mingham a year and a half — from shortly after the first 
day of 1837 to the 19th of June, 1838. 

At the end of that time I went back to my mother's 
house at Hadlcy. She had in the meantime returned from 
Vienna, had completed her two volumes on that journey, 
and published them with such a measure of success as to 
encourage her in hoping that she might vary her never- 
ceasing labor in the production of novels by again under- 
taking other journeys. But for this, and still more for 
the execution of other schemes, of which I shall have to 
sjDeak further on, my presence and companionship were 
necessary to her. And after much consultation and very 
many walks together round the little quiet garden at 
Hadley, it was decided between us that I should send in 
my resignation of the Birmingham mastership, defer all 
alternative steps in the direction of .any other life career, 
and devote myself, for the present at least, to becoming 
her companion and squire. 

The decision was a very momentous one. As might 
have been anticipated, the " deferring " of any steps in the 
direction of a professional career of any sort turned out 
eventually to be the final abandonment of any such. It 
could hardly be otherwise in the case of a young man of 
twenty-eight, which was my age at the time. I was the 
son of a father who had left absolutely nothing behind 
him, and I had no prospect whatever of any independent 
means from any other source. It is true that property 
settled on my mother before her marriage would in any 
case suffice to keep me from absolute destitution, but that 
was about all that could be said of it. And certainly the 
decision to which my mother and I came during these 



248 WHAT I EEMEMBER. 

walks round and round the Had ley garden was audacious 
rather than prudent. 

I have never regretted it during any part of the now 
well-nigh half a century of life that has elapsed since the 
resolution was taken. I have been, I have not the smallest 
doubt, a much happier man than I should have been had 
I followed a more beaten track. My brother Anthony 
used to say of me that I should never have earned my salt 
in the routine work of a profession, or any employment 
under the authoritative supervision of a superior. I al- 
ways dissented, and beg still to record my dissent, from 
any such judgment. But, as it is, I can say with sincerely 
grateful recognition in my heart, that I have been a very 
happy — I fear I may say an exceptionally happy — man. 
Despite this, I do not think that were I called upon to 
advise a young man in precisely similar circumstances to 
mine at that time, I should counsel him to follow my ex- 
ample; for I have been not only a happy, but a singularly 
fortunate man. Again and again, at various turning-points 
of my life, I have been fortunate to a degree which no con- 
duct or prudence of my own merited. 

I was under no immediate obligation to work in any 
way, but I cannot say of myself I have been an idle man. 
I have worked much, and sometimes very hard. 

Upon one occasion — the occasion was that of sudden 
medical advice to the effect that it was desirable that I 
should take my first wife from Florence for a change of 
climate, which I was not in funds to do comfortably — I 
planned and wrote, from title-page to colophon, and sold 
a two-volume novel of the usual size in four-and-twenty 
days. I had a " turn of speed" in writing as well as walk- 
ing. I could do my five miles and three quarters in an 
hour at a fair toe-and-heel walk, and! wrote a novel in 
twenty-four days — it was written indeed in twenty-three, 
for I took a whole holiday in the middle of the work. Of 
com;se it may be said that the novel was trash. But it 
was as good as, and was found by the publisher to be 
more satisfactory than, some others of the great number 
I have perpetrated. And I should like those who may 
imagine that the arduous nature of the feat I accomplished 



THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 249 

was made less by the literary imperfection of the work to 
try the experiment of copying six hundred post-octavo 
pages in the time. I found the register of each day's work 
the other day. The longest was thirty-three pages. It 
was no great matter to have written three-and-thirty pages 
in one day, but I am disposed to think that few men (or 
even women) could continue for as many days at so high 
an average of speed. My brother used to say that he 
could not do the like to save his life and that of all those 
dearest to him. And he was not a slow writer. Of 
course when my book was done I was nearly done too. 
But I do not know that I was ever any the worse for the 
effort. The novel in question was called " Beppo the 
Conscript." 

No, I have not been an idle man since the day when my 
mother and myself decided that I was to follow no recog- 
nized profession. The long, too long, series of works which 
have been published as mine will account for probably 
considerably less than half the printed matter which I am 
responsible for having given to the world. Nor can I say 
that I was driven to work ''by hunger and request of 
friends," During all my long career of authorship there 
was no period at which I could not have lived an idle man 
— not so well as I wished, certainly; but I was not driven 
by imperious necessity. 

Yet I have a very pretty turn for idleness too. It is as 
pleasant to me " to smoke my canister and tipple my ale 
in the shade," as Thackeray says, as to any man. An- 
thony had no such turn. Work to him was a necessity 
and a satisfaction. He used often to say that he envied 
me the capacity for being idle. Had he possessed it, poor 
fellow, I might not now be speaking of him in the past 
tense. And still less than of me could it be said of him 
that he was ever driven to literary work deficiente cru- 
meoid. But he labored, during the whole of his manhood 
life, with an insatiable ardor that (taking into considera- 
tion his very efficient discharge of his duties as post-office 
surveyor) puts my industry into the shade. 

Certainly vv^e both of us ought to have inherited, and I 
suppose did inherit, an aptitude for industry. My father 
11* 



250 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

was, as I have said, a remarkably laborious, though an un- 
successful, man, and my mother left a hundred and fifteen 
volumes, written between her fiftieth year and that of her 
death. 

Shortly after my final return from Birmingham my 
mother had a bad illness. It could not have been a very 
long one ; the record of her published work shoWs no ces- 
sation of literary activity. Whether this illness had any- 
thing to do with the resolution she came to much about 
the same time to change her residence, I do not remem- 
ber, but about this time we established ourselves at No. 20 
York Street. 

Here, as everywhere else where ray mother found or 
made a home, the house forthwith became the resort of 
pleasant people ; and my time in York Street was a very 
agreeable one. Among other frequenters of it, my diary 
makes frequent mention of Judge Haliburton, of Nova 
Scotia, better known to the world as Sam Slick, the Clock- 
maker. He was, as I remember him, a delightful compan- 
ion — for a limited time. He was in this respect exactly 
like his books — extremely amusing reading if taken in 
rather small doses, but calculated to seem tiresomely mo- 
notonous if indulged in at too great length. He Avas a 
thoroughly good fellow, kindly, cheery, hearty, and sym- 
pathetic always; and so far always a welcome companion. 
But his funning was always pitched in the same key, and 
always more or less directed to the same objects. His 
social and political ideas and views all coincided with my 
own, which, of course, tended to make us better friends. 
In appearance he looked entirely like an Englishman, but 
not at all like a Londoner. Without being at all too fat, 
he was large and burly in person, with gray hair, a large 
ruddy face, a humorous mouth, and bright blue eyes al- 
ways full of mirth. He was an inveterate chewer of to- 
bacco, and, in the fulness of comrade-like kindness, strove 
to indoctrinate me with that habit. But I was already an 
old smoker, and preferred to content myself with that 
mode of availing myself of the blessing of tobacco. 

" Highways and Byeways " Grattan we also saw occa- 
sionally when anything brought him to London. He also 



THE PARTING OF THE WAYS. 251 

was, as will readily be believed, Avliat is generally called 
very good company. He, too, was full of fun, and cer- 
tainly it could not be said that his fiddle had but one string 
to it. His fault lay in the opposite direction. His fun- 
ning muse "made increment of" everything. He was in- 
tensely Irish, in manner, accent, and mind. He had a bro- 
ken, or naturally bridgeless, nose, and possessed as small a 
share of good looks or personal advantages as most men. 
He first urged me to try my hand at a novel. He had 
seen some of my early scribblings, but repeated that " Fic- 
tion, me boy, fiction and passion are what readers want." 
But I did not at that time, or for many a long year after- 
wards, feel within myself any capacity for supplying such 
want. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

MESMERIC EXPEEIENCES. ' 

On the l^th of August, in 1838, as I find by my diary, 
"I went with Henrietta Skerret to see the Baron Dupotet 
magnetize his patients." This was my first introduction 
to a subject, and to a special little world of its own, of 
which subsequently I saw a great deal, and which shortly 
began to attract an increasing amount of attention from 
the p-reater world around it. The Miss Skerret mentioned 
was the younger of two sisters, the nieces of Mathias, the 
author of the once well-known, but now forgotten, " Pur- 
suits of Literature." Mr. Mathias and his sister, Mrs. Sker- 
ret, had been old acquaintances of my mother from earlier 
days than those to which any reminiscences of mine run 
back. And Maryanne and Henrietta Skerret were lifelong 
friends of my mother's and of mine. They were left at the 
death of their parents very slenderly provided for, and 
Maryanne, the elder, became by the interest of some influ- 
ential person among their numerous friends, received into 
the service of the queen in some properly menial capacity. 
But of all those in the immediate service of her majesty, 
it is probable that there was not one, whether menial or 
other, equal to Miss Skerret in native power of intellect, 
extent of reading, and linguistic accomplishment. And 
this the queen very speedily discovered, the result of 
which was that to her particular service, which I believe 
consisted in taking charge of the jewelry which the queen 
had in daily use, was added that of marking in the volumes 
which her majesty wished to make some acquaintance 
with those passages which she deemed worth the queen's 
attention. She remained with the queen many years, till 
advancing age was thought to have entitled her to a retir- 
ing pension, which she was still enjoying when I saw her, 
a very old woman, two or three years ago. I know that she 



MESMERIC EXPERIENCES. 253 

found licr position in the household, as may be readily- 
understood, an irksome and materially uncomfortable one. 
But of her royal mistress, and of every member of the 
royal family she came into contact with, she never ceased 
to speak with the utmost affection and gratitude. 

The younger sister, Henrietta, died some years before her. 
I had of late years seen much more of her than of her sister ; 
for of course the position of the latter cut her off very 
much from all association with her friends. Henrietta 
was as remarkably clever a woman as her sister, but very 
different from her. She was as good a linguist, but her 
natural bent was to mathematics and its kindred subjects 
rather than to general literature. And whereas Maryanne 
was marked by an exquisite sense of humor, and was al- 
ways full of fun, Henrietta was, I think, the most judicial- 
minded v\^oman I have ever known. I have never met the 
man or woman whom I should have preferred to consult on 
a matter of weighing and estimating the value of evidence. 
She was for many years, as was my mother also, an inti- 
mate friend of Captain Kater, wlio was in those days well 
known in the scientific world as "Pendulum Kater," from 
some application, I fancy, of the properties of the pendulum 
to the business of mapping, in which he had been engaged 
in India. Young, Woolaston, De Morgan, and others ejus- 
dem farince, were all Miss Skerret's friends, especially the 
last named. And I was brought into contact with some 
of them by her means. 

This was the lady who, in 1838, invited me to accompany 
her to a seance at the house of Baron Dupotet, a French- 
man, whose magnetizing theories and practice were at 
that time exciting some attention. 

Here is an extract from my diary written the same 
evening: 

"The phenomena I have witnessed are certainly most 
extraordinary and unaccountable. That one young woman 
was thrown into a convulsive state is entirely undeniable. 
Her muscles, which we felt, were hard, rigid, and in a state 
of tension, and so remained for a longer time than it is 
possible for any person voluntarily to keep them so — for, 
I should say, at least twenty minutes. A little girl be- 



254 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

came to all appearance somnambulous. This, however, 
might more possibly be imposture. When the little girl 
and the yomig woman were placed near each other, the 
effect on both was increased, and the girl instead of being 
merely somnambulous, became convulsive. The little 
girl, as far as the close observation of the onlookers 
could detect [underlining in original], saw the colors of 
objects, etc., with her eyes closed. This, however, is evi- 
dence of a nature easily deceptive. When waked from 
her magnetic trance, she forgot, or professed to have for- 
gotten, all that she had said or done when in it. But 
when again put into a state of trance or somnambulism, 
she again remembered and sj^oke of what had occurred in 
the former trance. 

" After these patients were disposed of, two young men 
of the spectators offered themselves as subjects to the 
magnetizer. He said that they were not good subjects 
for it, and that it would be difficult to affect them, and 
w^ould take a long time. He then tried me, and after a 
short space of time, I think not more than half a minute, 
he said that I was very sensitive to the magnetic influence, 
and that in two or three sittings he could produce '' des 
effets extraordinaires'' on me ; but that he was then tired, 
and that '• rien ne coule plus^ from his fingers." 

It is not so stated in my diary, but I remember perfect- 
ly well that the general impression left on my mind by the 
baron was not a favorable one. I find by my diary that 
I read his book, translated from the French by Miss Sker- 
ret, a few days afterwards, and the result was to increase 
the above impression. But I was far from coming to the 
conclusion that his pretensions were all chimerical. As 
regards his dictum about my own impressionability, I may 
observe that on various occasions at long -distant times 
I have been subjected to the experiments of several pro- 
fessing magnetizers of reputed first-rate power, but that 
never has the slightest effect of any kind whatever been 
produced upon me. Sometimes I was pronounced to be 
physically a bad subject ; sometimes I was accused of spoil- 
ing the experiment by wilfully resisting the influence j 
sometimes the ma^jnetizer was too tired. 



MESMERIC EXPERIENCES. 255 

I think I may as well throw together here the rest of my 
experiences and reminiscences in connection with this sub- 
ject — or rather some selections from them, for I have at 
different times and places seen so much of it that I might 
fill volumes with the reports of my observations. 

On the 13th of February, 1839, my mother and I dined 
with Mr. Grattan to meet Dr. Elliotson, and on the follow- 
ing day we went by appointment to meet him at the house 
of a patient of his, a little boy in Red Lion Street. I saw 
subsequently a great deal of Dr. Elliotson, and I may say 
became intimate with him. It needed but little inter- 
course with him to perceive that here was a man of a very 
different calibre from Baron Dupotet. Without at all 
coming to the conclusion that the latter was a charlatan, it 
was abundantly evident to me that Elliotson was in no de- 
gree such. He was a gentleman, a highly educated and 
accomplished man, and so genuinely in earnest on this sub- 
ject of " animal magnetism," as it was the fashion then to 
call it, that he was ready to spend and be spent in his 
efforts to establish the truthfulness and therapeutic useful- 
ness of its pretensions. 

Here is the account of what we — my mother and I — 
witnessed on that 14th of February, as given in my diary 
written the same day : 

"He put the little boy to sleep very shortly, then drew 
him by magnetic passes out of his chair, and caused him, 
while evidently all the time asleep, to imitate him [Dr. 
Elliotson] in all his attitudes and movements. We both 
firmly believed that the boy loas asleep. We then went 
to the house of another patient, Emma Melhuish, the 
daughter of a glazier, sixteen years old, and ill in bed from 
cataleptic fits." 

This was a very remarkable case, and had attracted con- 
siderable attention. Emma Melhuish was a very beauti- 
ful girl, and she was perhaps the most remarkable instance 
I ever witnessed of a singular phenomenon resulting from 
magnetic sleep, which has been often spoken of in relation 
to other cases — the truly wonderful spiritual beauty as- 
sumed by the features and expression of the patient dur- 
ing superinduced cataleptic trance, which has never, I be- 



256 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

lieve, been observed in cases of natural catalepsy. I have 
seen this girl, Emma Melhuisli (doubtless a very pretty 
girl in her normal state of health, but with nothing intel- 
lectually or morally special about her), throw herself during 
her magnetic trance into attitudes of adoration, the grace 
and expressiveness of which no painter could hope to find 
in the best model he ever saw or heard of, while her face 
and features, eyes especially, assumed a rapt and ecstatic ex- 
pressiveness which no Saint Theresa could have equalled. 
It was a conception of Fra Angelico spiritualized b}^ the 
presence of the breath of life. Never shall I forget the 
look of the girl as I saw her in that condition ! I can see 
her now ! and can remember, as I felt it then, the painful- 
ness of the suggestion that such an apparent outlook of the 
soul was in truth nothing more than the result of certain 
purely material conditions of the body. But was it such ? 

Here is ray diary's account of what I saw that first day: 

" We found her in mesmeric sleep, she having been so 
since left by Dr. Elliotson in that condition the day be- 
fore. We heard her predict the time when her fits would 
recur, and saw the prediction verified with the utmost ex- 
actitude. We heard her declare m what part of the house 
her various sisters were at the moment, saying that one 
had just left the counting-house and had come into the 
next room, all which statements we carefully verified. 
My mother and myself came home fully persuaded that, 
let the explanatory theory of the matter be what it might, 
there had been no taint of imposture in what we had wit- 
nessed." 

On subsequent visits we assured ourselves of the entire 
truthfulness of statements to the effect that Emma was 
conscious of the approach of Dr. Elliotson, while he was 
still in a different street, and to the punctuality with which 
she went to sleep and waked, at the hour she had named 
herself as that when she should do so. 

I remember Dr. Elliotson relating to me, as an instance 
of the utility of the magnetic influence, a curious case to 
which he had been called. The brother of a young girl 
had, as a practical joke, suddenly fired off a pistol behind 
her head. She was of course painfully startled, with the 



MESMERIC EXPERIENCES. 257 

result of becoming affected by a fit of hiccough so per- 
sistent that no means could be found or suggested of 
making it cease. It was absolutely impossible for the 
girl to swallow anything. She was becoming exhausted, 
and the case assumed a really alarming aspect. It was 
at this conjuncture that Elliotson was called in. He suc- 
ceeded in putting her into a magnetic sleep, with of course 
perfect calm, after which the hiccough returned no more. 

But by far the most curious and interesting of Elliot- 
son's cases was one of which a good deal was, I think, 
said and printed in those days, but of which very few per- 
sons, probably, saw as much as I did — the case of the two 
Okey girls. They were both patients, I believe, for some 
form of catalepsy, in a hospital of which Dr. Elliotson 
was one of the leading physicians. Dr. Elliotson was 
obliged to throw up his position there, because those who 
were in authority at the hospital were bitterly opposed to 
his magnetizing experiments and practice. And about the 
same time, or shortly afterwards, the Okey girls were dis- 
missed for a cause which seems grotesquely absurd, but 
the story of which is strictly true. These girls, of, I sup- 
pose, about thirteen and fourteen, being in the very ex- 
traordinary condition which a prolonged course of mag- 
netizing had produced (of which I shall speak further 
presently), were in the habit of declaring that they "saw 
Jack" at the bedside of this or that patient in the hospi- 
tal. And the patients of whom they made this assertion 
invariably died ! That the presence of such prophetesses 
in the hospital was undesirable is intelligible enough ; but 
what are we to think of the motives, presentiments, in- 
stincts, intuitions of mental or physical nature which 
prompted such guesses or prophecies ? 

Much about the same time my brother had a serious and 
dangerous illness, so much so that his medical attendants 
— of whom Dr. Elliotson was, I know not why, not one, 
though we were intimate with him at the time — were by 
no means assured respecting the issue of it. Now it is 
within my own knowledge that the Okey girls^ especially 
one of them (Jane, I think^her name was), were very fre- 
quently in the lodgings occupied by my brother at the 



258 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

time, during the period of his greatest danger, and used 
constantly to say that they "saw Jack by his side, but 
only up to his knee," and therefore they thought he would 
recover — as he did ! I am almost ashamed to write what 
seems such childish absurdity. But the facts are certain, 
and taken in conjunction with the cause of the girls' dis- 
missal from the hospital, and with a statement made to 
me subsequently by Dr. EUiotson, they are very curious. 
I may add that when cross-examined as closely as was 
possible as to what they saw, the girls said they did not 
know — that they did know that certain persons whom 
they saw were about to die shortly, and that was their 
way of saying it. They, on more than one occasion, on 
reaching our house by omnibus, said that they had seen 
"Jack" by the side of one of the passengers — of course I 
cannot say with what issue. 

The statement referred to was as follows : Elliotson 
having been in some sort the cause of the two girls being 
turned out of the hospital, and being anxious, moreover, 
to continue his observations on them, took them into his 
own house. There, looking out one day from an upper 
window, they saw across the street at the opposite window 
three fine healthy-looking children. They were, said El- 
liotson, the children of a hairdresser, who had a shop be- 
low. " What a pity," said Jane Okey, " that that child in 
the middle has Jack at him. He will die !" And so with- 
in a day or two — it might have been hours, I am not cer- 
tain — the child did die ! Believing, as I do. Dr. Elliotson 
to have been a truthful and habitually accurate speaker, I 
confess that it does not satisfy me to dismiss this story, 
especially when taken in conjunction with the other anec- 
dotes I have related, as mere " coincidence," though I have 
no shadow of a theory to offer in explanation of it. 

The purely physical experiments which were performed 
with these girls before my eyes were curious and interest- 
ing. I have seen those Okey girls, and they were slight, 
small girls, lift weights which it would be quite impossi- 
ble for them to lift normally, not by applying the whole 
strength of the body and back to the task, but by taking 
the ring of an iron weight in the hand, and so lifting it in 



MESMERIC EXPERIENCES. 259 

obedience to the "passes" of the magnetizer applied to 
the arm. 

But decidedly the most singular and curious part of the 
case consisted in the abnormal condition of mind and in- 
telligence in which they lived under magnetic influence 
for many weeks at a time. There were three conditions, 
or, as it might be said, three stages of condition in which 
I saw and studied them. Firstly — though it Avas lastly as 
regards my opportunities of observation — there was their 
normal natural condition. Secondly, there was a condi- 
tion not of trance, or somnambulism, but of existence car- 
ried on according to the usual laws and conditions, but 
resulting apparently from the application of magnetism 
during prolonged periods of time, during w^hich complete 
interruption of conscious identity seemed to have taken 
place. The third state was that of trance. In the first 
state they were much such as children of that age taken 
out of a workhouse, say, might be expected to be — awk- 
ward, shy, seemingly stupid, and unwilling to speak much 
when questioned. In the second state they were bright, 
decidedly clever, apt to be pert, and perfectly self-con- 
fident. And in this condition they had no recollection 
whatsoever of any of the circumstances, persons, or things 
connected with their previous lives. It was in this state 
that they talked about " Jack," and in this state that we 
— my mother and myself — knew them for weeks together. 
While in this state a very slight accident was suflicient to 
produce cataleptic rigidity and trance ; often one without 
the other. I remember one of the girls dining once with 
us in the middle of the day. A dish of pease was handed 
round, the spoon in which, it being hot weather, was no 
doubt heated by the successive hands which had used it. 
When Jane Okey grasped it in her hand to take some 
pease her fingers became clinched around it, and she could 
not open them. But there ensued no trance or other 
manifestation of catalepsy. On another occasion she was 
in my mother's house playing on the accordion, which she 
did very nicely in her magnetic state, but could not do at 
all in her normal state, and I, sitting at the other side of 
the room opposite to her, and reading a book, was moving 



260 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

my hand in time to the music, though not thinking of her 
or of it. Suddenly she fell back in a trance, magnetized 
unconsciously by me by the " passes " I was making with 
my hand. I have also produced a similar result by mag- 
netizing her intentionally behind her back, while she was 
entirely unconscious of what I was doing. 

But perhaps the most singular and remarkable scene 
connected with these girls was that which occurred Avhen, 
their physical health having been very greatly, if not per- 
fectly, restored, it became necessary to take them out of 
that " second state " which has been above described, and 
to restore them to their former consciousness, their former 
life, and their parents. The scene was a very painful one. 
The mother only, as far as I remember, was j^resent. Mem- 
ory seemed only gradually, and, at first, very partially, to 
return to them. The mother was a respectable, but poor 
and very uneducated woman, and of course wholly differ- 
ent in intelligence and manners from all the surroundings 
to which the girls had become habituated. And the ex- 
pression of repulsion and dismay with which they at first 
absolutely refused to believe the statements that were 
made to them, or to accept their mother as such, while 
she, poor woman, was weeping at what appeared to her 
this newly-developed absence of all natural affection, was 
painful in the extreme. 

Subsequently the daughter of one of these girls lived 
for some years, I think, with my brother's family at Wal- 
tham, as a housemaid. 

The next reminiscences I have in connection with this 
subject belong to a time a few years later. 

We, my mother and I, had heard tidings from America 
of a certain Mr. Daniel Hume, of whom very strange things 
were related. It was no longer a question of physical spe- 
cialties and manifestations, which unquestionably did tend, 
apart from their medical value, to throw some gleams, or 
hopes of gleams, of light on the mysterious laws of the 
connection between mind and matter. The new candidate 
for the attention of the world claimed {not to have the 
power, as was currently stated at the time, but) to be oc- 
casionally and involuntarily the means of producing visi- 



MESMERIC EXPERIENCES. 261 

tations from the denizens of the spirit world. And before 
long we heard that he had arrived in England, and was a 
guest in the house of Mr. Rymer, a solicitor, at Ealing. 
We lost no time in procuring an introduction to that esti- 
mable gentleman and his amiable wife, and were most 
courteously invited by him to visit him for the purpose of 
interviewing and making acquaintance with his remarkable 
guest. We went to Ealing, were most hospitably received, 
and forthwith introduced to Mr. Daniel Hume, as he was 
then called, although he afterwards called himself, or came 
to be called, Home. He was a young American, about 
nineteen or twenty years of age I should say, rather tall, 
with a loosely-put-together figure, red hair, large and clear 
but not bright blue eyes, a sensual mouth, lanky cheeks, 
and that sort of complexion which is often found in in- 
dividuals of a phthisical diathesis. He was courteous 
enough, not unwilling to talk, ready enough to speak of 
those curious phenomena of his existence which differen- 
tiated him from other mortals, but altogether unable or 
unwilling to formulate or enter into discussion on any 
theory respecting them. We had tea, or rather supper, I 
think. There were the young people of Mr. Rymer's 
family about on the lawn, and among them a pretty girl, 
with whom, naturally enough, our young " medium " (for 
that had become the accepted term) was more disposed to 
flirt — after a fashion, I remember, which showed him to 
have been a petted inmate of the household — than to at- 
tend to matters of another world. 

But other guests arrived. Sir David Brewster I remem- 
ber among them, and Daniel had to be summoned to the 
business of the evening. This was commenced by our all 
placing ourselves round a very large and very heavy old- 
fashioned mahogany dining-table, where we sat in expec- 
tation of whatever should occur. Before long little crack- 
ings were heard, in the wood of the table apparently. 
Then it quivered, became more and more agitated, was 
next raised first at one end and then at the other, and 
finally was undeniably raised bodily from the ground. At 
that moment Sir David Brewster and myself, each acting 
on his own uncommunicated impulse, precipitated our- 



262 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

selves from our chairs under the table. The table was 
seen to be for a moment or two hovering in the air, per- 
haps some four or five inches from the floor, without its 
being possible to detect any means by which it could have 
been moved. 

I said to Sir David, as our heads were close together 
under the table, and we were on "all fours" on the floor, 
" Does it not seem that this table is raised by some means 
wholly inexplicable?" "Indeed it would seem so!" he 
replied. But he wrote a letter to the Times the next day, 
or a day or two after, in which he gave an account of his 
visit to Ealing, but ended by denying that he had seen 
anything remarkable. But it is a fact that he did do and 
say what I have related. 

This was the sum of what occurred. There was no pre- 
tence of the presence of any spiritual visitor. I may ob- 
serve that although an ordinarily strong man might have 
lifted either end of the table while the other end remained 
on the ground, I am persuaded that no man could have 
raised it bodily, unless, perhaps, by placing his shoulders 
under the centre of it. 

After the table exhibition Mr. Hume fell into a sort of 
swoon or trance. And it was then that he uttered the 
often-quoted words, " When Daniel recovers give him 
some bottled porter !" which was accordingly done ! It 
may be observed, however, that he did appear to be much 
exhausted. 

Various little fragments of experiences, and the increas- 
ing amount of attention which the world was giving to the 
subject, had kept the matter in my mind, till some years 
afterwards I had an opportunity of inviting Mr. Hume to 
visit me in my house in Florence. He came, and stayed 
with us for a month. And during the whole of that time 
— every evening as it seems to my remembrance, though 
I have no diary which records the fact — we had frequent 
experiments of his " mediumship." 

Of course it is (happily for the reader) out of the ques- 
tion for me to attempt to give any detailed record of the 
proceedings and experiences of those repeated seances. I 
can only select a few facts which appeared to me most 



MESMERIC EXPERIENCES. 263 

striking at the time, and add the general result as to the 
impression produced on my mind. 

All our Florentine friends and acquaintances were eager 
to have an opportunity of passing an evening with the al- 
ready celebrated medium. We generally limited our num- 
ber to about eight persons ; but pretty regularly had as 
many as that every evening. The performance usually 
began by crackings and oscillations of the round table at 
which we sat. Then would come more distinct raps ; then 
the declaration that a visitor from the spirit world was 
present, then the demand for whom the said visit was in- 
tended, to which a reply was "knocked out," by raps in- 
dicating the letters required to form the desired name as 
the letters of the alphabet, always on the table, were rap- 
idly run over. Sometimes a mistake was made, and an 
unintelligible word produced in consequence of too great 
haste in doing this. And then the process had to be gone 
through again. The medium never corrected any such 
mistake at the moment it was made, but seemed to await 
the completion of the process, as the rest did. 

One or more " spirits " came, to the best of my recollec- 
tion, every evening. Nor could I detect any sort of favor- 
itism, or motive of any sort for the selection of the parties 
said to be visited. This is the sort of thing that would 
occur: There was present a well-known and much- re- 
spected English banker, established in Florence, a hale, 
robust, cheery sort of man, and a general favorite — the 
last man in the Avorld one would say to be credited with 
nervous impressionability. A " spirit " was announced as 
having " come for him." Who is it ? A name was rapped 
out in the manner described. The elderly banker declared 
that he had never had any friend or relative of that name, 
and had never heard it before. A second time the name 
was spelled out while the banker sat threshing out his rec- 
ollections. Suddenly he struck his forehead with his 
hand, and exclaimed, " By Heaven ! it is true ! I^anny 
" (I forget the name). " She was my nurse in York- 
shire more than half a century ago!" Of course those 
wdio do not understand that scepticism is frequently more 
credulous than faith, sav ^t once that Mr. Hume, in the 



264 WHAT I KEMEMBER. 

exercise of his profession, like the gypsies in the exercise 
of theirs, had made it his business to discover the former 
existence of Nanny , and her connection with the per- 
son he was bent on befooling. But taking into considera- 
tion the total severance of the old banker's infancy both 
as to years and locality from any of his then surroundings; 
the fact that it was so long since he had heard the name 
in question mentioned that he had himself entirely for- 
gotten it ; and the further fact that there was nobody in 
Florence who had any connection with him or his family 
in his early years, and the circumstance that he that even- 
ing saw Mr. Hume for the first time, I confess that it seems 
to me that the improbability of any proposed explanation 
of the mystery must be incalculably great indeed, for a 
solution the improbability of which approaches so very 
near to impossibility to be preferably accepted. 

Here is one other case, which I will give both because 
the person on whose testimony the value of it depends 
was one on whose accurate veracity I could dej^end as on 
my own, and because it illustrates one specialty of Mr. 
Hume's performances which I have not yet spoken of. 
This was a sensation of being touched, which was frequent- 
ly experienced by many of those present. This touching 
almost invariably took the form of a knee being grasped 
under the table, or a hand being laid upon it. In the case 
I am about to relate this was experienced in a more re- 
markable manner. 

A very highly valued old female servant, who had lived 
in my then wife's family since her birth, and had followed 
her when she married me, had some months previously 
died in my house. The affection which had subsisted be- 
tween her and my wife was a very old and a very strong 
one. Now there was, it would seem, an old nursery pet 
name, by which this woman had been, long years before, in 
the habit of calling my wife. I had never heard it, or of 
it. My Avife herself had never heard it for very many 
years. She and the old servant had never for years and 
years spoken on the subject. But one evening this pet 
name was very distinctly spelled ; and my wife declared 
that she at the same time felt a sort of pressure at her 



MESMERIC EXPERIENCES. 265 

side, as she sat in the circle, as if some person or thing 
had been endeavoring to find a j^lace by her side. But 
for all that, my wife, though utterly mystified and incapa- 
ble of suggesting any theory on the subject, was a strong 
disbeliever in all Mr. Hume's pretensions. She strongly 
disliked the man. And were it not that, as we all know, 
her sex never permits their estimate of facts to be influ- 
enced by their feelings, it might be supposed possible that 
this biassed her mind upon the subject. 

I could add dozens of cases to the above two, but they 
were all very similar; and it is sufficient to say that the 
same sort of thing occurred over and over again. 

I may mention, however, that I observed that any ques- 
tion addressed to the supposed spirits bearing on theology 
and matters of creed were invariably answered according 
to the views of the questioner. Catholics, Protestants, 
materialists, were all impartially confirmed in the convic- 
tions of their diverse persuasions. 

Also I should not omit to mention that my wife, taking 
her occasion from Mr. Hume's complaints of his own weak- 
ness of lungs, spoke of my brother's death in Belgium and 
of my life at Ostend, and at a sitting some few days after- 
wards asked if she could be told where I had last seen 
my brother on earth. The answer came promptly, "At 
Ostend." But the truth is, as the reader knows, that I 
took my leave of him on board the Ostend steamer in the 
Thames. 

My account of these sittings would not be as judicially 
accurate as I have endeavored to make it, however, were 
I to omit the statement that Mr. Hume on two or three 
occasions offered to cause " spirit hands " to become visible 
to us. The room was darkened for this purpose; and at 
the opposite side of a rather large table from that at which 
the spectators were sitting certain forms of hands did be- 
come faintly visible. To me they appeared like long kid 
gloves stuffed with some substance. But I am far from 
asserting that they were such. 

On the whole, the impression left on my mind by my 
month-long intercourse with Mr. Hume was a disagreeable 
one of doubt and perplexity. I was not left with the con- 
12 



^: 



266 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

viction that he was an altogether trustworthy and sincere 
man. Nor was I fully persuaded of the reverse. I saw 
nothing which appeared to me to compel the conclusion 
that some agency unknown to the ascertained and recog- 
nized laws of nature was at work. But I did hear many 
communications made in Mr. Hume's presence in the man- 
ner which has been described, which seemed to me to be 
wholly inexplicable by any theory I could bring to bear 
upon them. It may be observed that no theory of thought- 
reading' will serve the turn, for in many cases the facts, 
circumstances, or names communicated were evidently not 
in the thoughts of the persons to whom they were so com- 
municated. Of course it may be answered, " Ah ! but 
however ' evident ' that may have seemed to you, the facts 
ivere in the thoughts of the parties in question." To this 
I can only reply that to me, my very complete knowledge 
of the persons in question, and of their veracity — one of 
them, as in the case above related, being my own wife — 
renders the explanation suggested absolutely inadmissible. 

I have seen at various subsequent periods a great many 
professors of " mediumship " and their performances. I 
was present at many sittings given by Mrs. G ^ , a huge 
mountain of a woman, very uneducated, apparently good- 
natured and simple, but with a tendency to become dis- 
agreeable when her attempts at communication with the 
unseen world were declared to be failures. 

I will give here the copy of a letter which I wrote to 
the secretary of " The Dialectical Society," which had ap- 
plied to me for my " experiences " on the subject. I can- 
not at the present day sura up any better the conclusions' 
to which they led me. 

"Florence, 2Wi December, 1869. 

" Sir, — In reply to your letter of the iVth I can only say that I have but 
little to add to those previous statements of mine, of which you are in pos- 
session. 

" With regard to the sittings with Mrs. G., I can only say that the great- 
est watchfulness on the part of those sharing in them failed to detect (as 
regards the physical phenomena) any trace of imposture. These phe- 
nomena, which took place in the dark, such as the sudden falling on the 
table of a large quantity of jonquils, which filled the whole room with 
their odor, were extraordinary, and on any common theory of physics un- 



MESMERIC EXPERIENCES. 267 

accountable. The room in which this took place had been completely ex- 
amined by me, and Mrs. G.'s person had been carefully searched by my 
wife. With regard to metaphysical phenomena, an attempt to hold com- 
munication with intelligences other than those present in the flesh was 
stated by a lady to whom a communication was addressed to have been 
extraordinarily successful, and to have been proved by the event. In the 
case of myself and my wife all such attempts resulted in total failure. 

"I have recently had a sitting with Dr. Willis of Boston. The phj^sical 
manifestations (in the dark) were remarkable and perplexing. The at- 
tempts at spiritual communication were altogether failures. 

" In short, the result of my experience thus far is this — that the physi- 
cal phenomena frequently produced are, in many cases, not the result of 
any sleight of hand, and that those who have witnessed them with due 
attention must be convinced that there is no analogy between them and 
the tricks of professed ' conjurors.' I may also mention that Bosco, one 
of the most accomplished professors of legerdemain ever known, in a con- 
versation with me upon the subject, utterly scouted the idea of the pos- 
sibility of such phenomena as I saw produced by Mr. Hume being per- 
formed by any of the resources of his art. 

" To what sort of agency these results are to be attributed I have no 
idea, and give no opinion ; although (inasmuch as I consider that the w^ord 
' supernatural ' involves a contradiction in terms) I hold that to admit that 
the phenomena exist, implies the admission that they are 'natural,' or in 
accordance with some law of nature. 

" AVith regard to the metaphysical phenomena, though I have witnessed 
many strange things, I have never known any that satisfactorily excluded 
the possibility of mistake or imposture. 

" Your obedient servant, T. Adolphus Trollope." 

If I am asked what, upon the whole, is my present state 
of mind upon the subject, I can only say that it is that 
unpleasant one expressed in Lord Chancellor Eldon's often- 
quoted words, "I doubt." 

Before, however, quitting the subject, my gossip about 
which has run to a length only excusable on the ground 
of the very general interest that has been attracted by it, 
I will give two more excerpts from my recollections, which 
relate to cases respecting which I have 7io doubt. They 
both refer, however, to purely physical phenomena. 

A French professor of "animal magnetism" came to 
Florence. His name, I think, w^as Lafontaine. He had 
a young girl with him, his patient. He brought her to 
my house, in which there was a long room, at one end of 
which he directed me to stand, then put the girl imme- 
diately in front of me, and told me to hold her, so as to 



268 



WHAT I REMEMBER. 



prevent her from coming to him, when, standing at the 
farther end of the room, he should draw her to him. I 
accordingly placed my arms around her waist, interlacing 
my fingers in front of her. She was a small, slight girl, 
and I was at that time a somewhat exceptionally strong 
man. The operator, then standing at the distance of some 
twenty feet or more, made "passes," as it were, beckon- 
ino- her with his hands to come to him. She struggled 
forward. I held her back with all my force, but was 
drao-o-ed after her towards the magnetizer. This may be 
accepted as an absolutely accurate and certain fact. 

This same Lafontaine had entirely failed in attempts to 
magnetize me, and in telling me, as he promised to do, 
what I in my house was doing at a given moment while 
he was absent. ^ 

My second excerpt concerns also my own experience, 
and shall be given with equally truthful accuracy. 

My wife, my wife's sister, and myself had been spend- 
ino- the evening in the house of Mr. Seymour Kirkup, an 
artist, who, once well known in the artistic world, lived on 
in Florence to a great age after that world liad forgotten 
him. A girl, his daughter by a servant who lived several 
years in his house, and who also had pretended to very 
strongly developed spiritualistic powers, developed, as he 
asserted, similar powers in a very wonderful degree. And 
during his latter years the old man absolutely and entirely 
lived, in every respect, according to the advice and dic- 
tates of " the spirits," as oracularly declared by Imogene, 
for that was her name. In short, she was a clever, worth- 
less hussy, and he was a besotted old man. Our visit to 
his house was to witness some of Imogene's performances. 
There was also present a Colonel Bowen, who was a con- 
vinced believer. 

I, my wife, and sister-in-law detected unmistakabl}^ the 
girl's clumsy attempts at legerdemain, but knew poor old 
Kirkup far too well to make any attempt to convict her. 
But as we walked home, with our minds full of the sub- 
ject, we said, " Let us try whether v/e can produce any 
effect upon a table, since that seems the regulation first- 
step in these mysteries ; and, at least, we shall have the 



MESMERIC EXPERIENCES. 269 

certainty of not being befooled by trickery." So, on 
reaching home, we took a table — rather a remarkable one. 
It was small, not above eighteen or twenty inches across 
the top of it. But it was very much heavier than any or- 
dinary table of that size, the stem of it being a massive 
bit of ancient chestnut-wood carving which I had adapted 
to that purpose. 

Well, in a minute or tw^o the table began to move very 
unmistakably. We were startled, and began to think that 
the ladies' dresses must have, unconsciously to them, pressed 
against it. We stood back therefore, taking care that 
nothing but the tips of our fingers touched the table. It 
still moved ! We said that some unconscious exertion of 
muscular force must have caused the movement, and, 
finally, we suspended our fingers about an inch or so above 
the surface of the table, taking the utmost care to touch 
it in no way whatever. The table still turned, and that to 
such an extent that, entirely untouched, it turned itself 
over, and fell to the ground. 

I can only observe of this, as the little boy said who 
was accused of relating an impossibilty as a fact, " I don't 
say it is possible, I only say it is true !" 

In Kirkup's case his entire and never-varying conviction 
of the truthfulness of Miss Imogene's material manifesta- 
tions and spiritual revelations was the more remarkable in 
that he had for many years — for all his life, for aught I know 
to the contrary — entertained and professed the most thor- 
ough persuasion of the futility and absurdity of all belief 
that the soul of man survived material death. His tenets 
on this subject are the more strongly impressed on my 
memory by an absurd incident that occurred to my pres- 
ent wife in connection with his materialistic theories. 

He and she were one day talking upon the subject, as 
they sat tete-d-tete on opposite sides of a table. Now 
Kirkup was very deaf — w^orse by a great deal than I am — 
and my wafe failing to make him hear a question she put 
to him, and having no other wanting materials at hand, 
hastily drew a card from her card-case and pencilled on 
the back of it : " What are your grounds for assurance 
that the visible death of the body is the death of the spirit 



A^ 



270 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

also?" He read, and addressed himself to reply, letting 
the card fall on the table between them, which she, think- 
ing only of the matter in discussion, mechanically put 
back into her card-case, and left at the next house at which 
she happened to be making a morning-call ! 

Kirkup's conversion to spiritualism was so complete 
that, as I have said, his entire life w^as shaped according 
to the dictates which Miss Imogene chose to represent as 
coming from her spiritual visitors. The old man had 
lived for very many years in Florence. All the interests 
which still bound him to life were there, and he was much 
attached to the city in w^hich so large a portion of his 
long life had been passed. But Imogene one day an- 
nounced that " the spirits " declared that he must go and 
live in Leghorn ! Of course the blow to the old man was 
a terrible one, but he meekly and unhesitatingly obeyed, 
and submitted to be uprooted when he was past eighty 
and packed o& to Leghorn ! I discovered subsequently — 
what I might have guessed at the time — that the good- 
for-nothing jade had a lover at Leghorn. Kirkup's new 
faith in the existence of a soul in man, separable from his 
body, continued firm, I believe, till his death, which oc- 
curred shortly afterwards. 

I have, at various times and in various countries, been 
present at the performances of spiritualistic 'iuediums (a 
monstrous word, but one can't write media), and always 
with a uniformly similar result in one respect. No non- 
material experience whatever has ever been vouchsafed to 
me myself. 31aterial phenomena of a very surprising 
nature, and altogether unaccountable in accordance with 
any received physical theories, I have seen in great abun- 
dance. And I must in justice say that the performances 
of Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke, which attracted so much 
attention in Piccadilly, masterly as they were as exhibi- 
tions of legerdemain, did not by any means succeed in 
proving the imposture of the pretensions of Hume and 
others by doing the same things. I think the Piccadilly 
performances did achieve this as regards the tying and 
loosening of knots in a dark cabinet. But when one of 
the performers above mentioned proceeded to "float in 



MESMERIC EXPERIENCES. oTl 

the air " be only demonstrated the impossibility of doing, 
by any means known to his art, that which Hume — or 
Home — was declared, on the most indisputable testimony, 
to have done. Mr. Maskelyne certainly " floated in the 
air" above the heads of the spectators, but I saw very un- 
mistakably the wire by which he was suspended. It may 
not have been icire, but I saw the cord, thread, or what- 
ever it may have been, by which he was suspended. Nor 
is it possible to doubt that the gentlemen who saw, or 
supposed themselves to have seen, Mr. Hume floating in 
the air above them would have failed to detect any such 
artifice as that by which the professor of legerdemain was 
enabled to do the same. And then we must not lose sight 
of the all-important difference between the two perform- 
ances, arising from the fact that the one performer has at 
command all the facilities afforded by a locale in which he 
has had abundant opportunity of making every prepara- 
tion which the resources of his art could suggest to him ; 
whereas the other exhibits his wonders under circum- 
stances absolutely excluding the possibility of any such 
preparation. 

But I never saw Mr. Hume float in the air. The only 
physical phenomena which I saw produced by him con- 
sisted in the moving and lifting of tables — in some cases 
very heavy tables. But I have witnessed, in very numer- 
ous cases, communications made by the medium to indi- 
viduals who have declared it to have been absolutely im- 
possible that Mr. Hume should by any ordinary means 
have known the facts communicated. And it has appeared 
to me, knowing all the circumstances, to have been as 
nearly impossible as can well be conceived without being 
absolutely so. 

Here is one more remarkable case — one out of dozens of 
such. A middle-aged Italian gentleman of the Jewish per- 
suasion asked that the spirit of his father, who, it was 
stated by the medium, was present, should mention where 
he and his son, then communicating with him, last met on 
earth. It should be stated that the inquirer, having aban- 
doned the faith of his fathers, professed entire disbelief in 
any existence of the soul, or any future life. The answer 



272 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

to bis query was spelled out in the manner I have already 
described, a certain Italian city being named. I watched 
the face of the sceptical inquirer as the letters were 
" rapped out " and gradually completed the name required. 
And I needed no confession of the fact from him to know 
that the answ^er had been correctly given. I thought the 
man would have fallen from his chair. He became ghast- 
ly pale, and trembled all over. He was in truth very ter- 
ribly impressed and affected, but — and the phenomenon is 
a very curious, though by no means an uncommon one — a 
few days afterwards the impression had entirely faded 
from his mind. He continued fully to admit that the fact 
which had occurred was altogether inexplicable, but wholly 
refused to believe that it involved any supposition incon- 
sistent with his strictly materialistic creed. 

In the above case, as in that of the banker given above, 
it may of course be said that it wiis within the bounds of 
possibility that Mr. Hume should have previously ascer- 
tained the fact that he stated. It is, of course, impossible 
for me here to explain to the reader every detail of the 
circumstances that seem to me to render such an explana- 
tion wholly inadmissible. I can only say that to a mind 
as entirely open upon the subject as I think my mind is, 
the supposition in question appears so improbable that it 
fails to impress me as a possibility. 

On the other hand, I have to say that every attempt of 
a similar kind, whether by Mr. Hume or by any other so- 
called medium, in which I myself have been the subject 
of the experiment, has absolutely and wholly failed. Mr. 
Hume never, to the best of my remembrance, introduced 
or announced the presence of any spirit " for me." I was 
like the boy at school whom no relative ever comes to see. 

The Mrs. G who has been mentioned at an earlier page 

announced upon one occasion the presence of my mother 
with results which would have sufficed to prove very sat- 
isfactorily that my mother's spirit was not there, if I had 
previously fully believed the case to have been otherwise. 

I once w^ent to visit the then celebrated Alexis in Paris. 
He knew that I was a resident in Florence, and began op- 
erations by proposing to describe to me my house there. 



MESMERIC EXPERIENCES. 273 

Of course such an experiment admitted of almost every 
conceivable kind of mystification and uncertainty. I told 
him that the proposed description would necessarily oc- 
cupy more of his time than seemed to me needed for pro- 
ducing the conviction of the reality of his power which I 
was anxious to acquire ; and that it would be abundantly 
sufficient for that purpose if he would simply tell me the 
number composed of four figures which I had written on 
a piece of paper, and sealed in a (perfectly non-transpar- 
ent) packet. He refused to make the attempt. 

Many years subsequently I attended the seances of a 
gentleman in London, whose performances attracted a 
good deal of attention at the time — of an unfavorable de- 
scription, for the most part — and whose chief specialty con- 
sisted in enclosing a piece of slate pencil loosely between 
two ordinary framed slates, securely tied together, and 
awaiting communications to be made by writing produced 
on the slate by the pencil thus enclosed acting automati- 
cally. I did see written words thus produced, where to 
the best of my observation there had been no words be- 
fore the slates were (quite securely) tied together. Nor 
could I form any theory or guess as to the manner in 
which this writing was produced under circumstances 
which seemed to make it perfectly impossible that it 
should be so produced. But the words so written con- 
vej^ed no remarkable or surprising information — and, in- 
deed, to the best of ray recollection had little meaning at 
all. 

Thus once again that portion of the performance which 
was, or might have been, of the nature of sleight of hand, 
was done so well as to cause much puzzlement and sur- 
prise ; while what may be called the spiritual part of the 
promised phenomenon failed entirely. 

I have witnessed the performances of sundry other me- 
dhims^l hate to write the word ! — always with the same 
net result. That is to say, the strictly physical phenome- 
na witnessed were in very many cases — not in all — utter- 
ly unaccountable and incomprehensible. The statement 
that the performances of many masters of legerdemain 
are also unaccountable and incomprehensible appears to 
12* 



274 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

me, while I fully admit the truth of it, to be of very little 
value. The phenomena produced by these professors are 
in almost every case totally different in kind, and are in 
every case placed in a wholly different category by the 
fact that the performers of them have the assistance of 
tools and means — the highly-skilled preparation and com- 
bination of which constitute a very important (if not the 
most essential) part of their professional equipment — and 
of the resources of their own prepared locale. Further- 
more, I cannot forget the testimony of that "prince of 
conjurors," Bosco, to the effect that the phenomena which 
I declared to him I had seen were entirely unachievable 
by any of the resources of his art. 

Above all I have the certain knowledge (resting not 
only on my own very perfect recollection, but on the un- 
varying testimony of the two other persons engaged in 
the experiment) that a table did move much and violently, 
as recorded above, while wholly and certainly untouched 
by any human hands or persons, and uncommunicated with 
— if I may use such an expression — save by the minds of 
the operators. 

The net conclusion, therefore, of my rather extensive 
experience in the matter is, that as regards phenomena 
purely physical, such have been and are frequently pro- 
duced by the practisers of " animal magnetism " — or by 
whatever name it may be preferred to call it — of a nature 
wholly inexplicable by any of the theories or suggestions 
which have been adduced for the explanation of them. 

With regard to non-physical phenomena — that is to 
say, such as imply the abnormal exercise of intelligences, 
whether incarnate or disembodied, outside the intelligence 
of the individual experimenting — I have to testify that I 
have heard from many highly credible persons the state- 
ment of their own experience of such communication with 
intelligences other than their own. And I have heard 
such statements immediately on the occurrence of the 
facts. But I have never in my own person received or 
been made the subject of any such. 



CHAPTER XX. 

IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 

No ! as I said at the end of the last chapter but one, 
before I was led away by the circumstances of that time 
to give the world the benefit of my magnetic reminis- 
cences — valeat quantum! — I was not yet bitten, despite 
Colley Grattan's urgings, with any temptation to attempt 
fiction, and " passion, me boy !" But I am surprised on 
turning over my old diaries to find how much I was writ- 
ing, and planning to write, in those days, and not less sur- 
prised at the amount of running about which I accom- 
plished. 

My life in those years of the thirties must have been a 
very busy one. I find myself writing and sending off a 
surprising number of "articles" on all sorts of subjects — 
reviews, sketches of travel, biographical notices, fragments 
from the byways of history, and the like, to all kinds of 
periodical publications, many of them long since dead and 
forgotten. That the world should have forgotten all these 
articles " goes without saying." But what is not perhaps 
so common an incident in the career of a penman is, that 
I had in the majority of cases utterly forgotten them, and 
all about them, until they were recalled to mind by turn- 
ing the yellow pages of my treasured but almost equally 
forgotten journals ! I beg to observe, also, that all this 
pen-work was not only printed but paid for. My motives 
were of a decidedly mercenary description. " Hie scribit 
famd ductus, at ille fame.'''* I belonged emphatically to the 
latter category, and little indeed of my multifarious pro- 
ductions ever found its final resting-place in the waste- 
paper basket. They were rejected often, but redespatched 
a second and a third time, if necessary, to some other 
"organ," and eventually swallowed by some editor or 
other. 



276 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

I am surprised, too, at the amount of locomotion which 
I contrived to combine with all this scribbling. I must 
have gone about, I think, like a tax-gatherer, with an ink- 
stand slung to my button-hole. And in truth I was in- 
dustrious; for I find myself in full swing of some journey, 
arriving at my inn tired at night, and finishing and send- 
ing off some article before I went to my bed. But it must 
have been only by means of the joint supplies contributed 
by all my editors that I could have found the means of 
paying all the stage-coaches, diligences, and steamboats 
which I find the record of my continually employing. 
^^ JVavibus atque Quadrigis pethniis bene vivereP^ And I 
succeeded by their means in living, if not well, at least very 
pleasantly. 

For I was born a rambler. 

I heard just now a story of a little boy, who replied to 
the common question, "What he would like to be when 
he grew up ?" by saying that he should like to be either a 
giant or a retired stockbroker ! I find the qualifying ad- 
jective delicious, and admire the pronounced taste for re- 
pose indicated by either side of the alternative. But my 
propensities were more active, and in the days before I 
entered my teens I used always to reply to similar de- 
mands, that I would be a " king's messenger." I knew 
no other life which approached so nearly to perpetual mo- 
tion. " The road " was my paradise, and it is a true say- 
ing that the child is father to the man. The Shakespearian 
passage which earliest impressed my childish mind and 
carried with it my heartiest sympathies was the song of 
old Autolycus : 

" Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, 
And merrily hent the stile-a : 
Your merry heart goes all the day, 
Your sad tires in a mile-a." 

Over how many miles of " foot-path way," under how 
many green hedges, has my childish treble chanted that 
enlivening ditty ! 

But that was in much earlier days to those I am now 
writing of. 

During the years between my dreary time at Birming- 



IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 277 

liam and my first departure for Italy, I find the record of 
many pedestrian or other rambles in England and abroad. 
There they are, all recorded day by day — the qualities of 
the inns and the charges at them (not so much less than 
those of the present day as might be imagined, with the 
exception of the demands for beds), the beauty and spec- 
ialties of the views, the talk of wayfaring companions, 
the careful measurements of the churches, the ever-recur- 
ring ascent of the towers of them, etc., etc. 

Here and there in the mountains of chaff there may be 
a grain worth preserving, as where I read that at Had don 
Hall the old lady who showed the house, and who boasted 
that her ancestors had been servitors of the possessors of 
it for more than three hundred years, pointed out to me 
the portrait of one of them, who had been " forester," 
hanging in the hall. She also pointed out the window 
from which a certain heiress had eloped, and by doing so 
had carried the hall and lands into the family of the pres- 
ent owners, and told me that Mrs. Radcliffe, shortly before 
the publication of her " Mysteries of Udolpho," had visited 
Haddon, and had sat at that window busily writing for a 
long time. 

I seem to have been an amateur of sermons in those 
days, from the constant records I find of sermons listened 
to, by no means always, or indeed generally, compliment- 
ary to the preachers. Here is an entry criticising, with 
young presumption, a sermon by Dr. Dibdin, whose bib^ 
liophile books, however, I had much taste for : 

" I heard Dr. Dibdin preach. He preached, with much 
gesticulation, emphasis, and grimace, the most utterly 
trashy sermon I ever heard ; words — words — words— with' 
out the shadow of an idea in them." 

I remember, as if it were yesterday, a shrewd sort of an 
old lady, the mother, I think, of the curate of the parish, 
who heard me, as we were leaving the church, expressing 
my opinion of the doctor's discourse, saying, " Well, it is 
a very old story, young gentleman, and it is mighty diffi- 
cult to find anything new to say about it !" 

The bibliomaniacal doctor, however, seems to have 
pleased me better put of the pulpit than in it, for I find 



278 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

that " he called in the afternoon and chatted amusingly 
for an hour. He fell tooth and nail upon the Oxford 
Tracts men, and told us of a Mr. Wackerbarth, a curate 
in Essex, a Cambridge man, who, he says, elevates the 
host, crosses himself, and advocates burning of heretics. 
It seems to me, however," continues this censorious young 
diarist, "that those who object to the persecution, even to 
extermination of heretics, admit the uncertainty and dubi- 
ousness of all theological doctrine and belief. For if it 
be certain that God will punish disbelief in doctrines es- 
sential to salvation, and certain that any church possesses 
the knowledge what those doctrines are, does it not follow 
that a man who goes about persuading people to reject 
those doctrines should be treated as we treat a mad dog 
loose in the streets of a city ?" Thus fools, when they 
are young enough, rush in where wise men fear to tread ! 

I had entirely forgotten, but find from my diary that it 
was our pleasant friend but indifferent preacher, Dr. Dib- 
din, w^ho on the 11th of February, 1839, married my sis- 
ter, Cecilia, to Mr., now Sir John, Tilley. 

It appears that I was not incapable of appreciating a 
good sermon when I heard one, for I read of the impres- 
sion produced upon me by an "admirable sermon preached 
by Mr. Smith " (it must have been Sydney, I take it) in 
the Temple Church. The preacher quoted largely from 
Jeremy Taylor, " giving the passages with an excellence 
of enunciation and expression w^hich impressed them ou 
my mind in a manner which will not allow me to forget 
them." Alack ! I hane forgotten every word of them ! 

I remember, however, perfectly well, without any refer- 
ence to my diary, hearing — -it must have been much about 
the same time — Sydney Smith preach a sermon at St. 
Paul's, which much impressed me. He took for his text, 
" Knowledge and wisdom shall be the stability of thy 
times" (I write from memory ^-the memory of half a cen- 
tury ago — but I think the words ran thus). Of course the 
gist of his discourse may be readily imagined. But the 
manner of the preacher remains more vividly present to 
my mind than his words. He spoke with extreme rapid- 
ity, and had the special gift of combining extreme rapidity 



L\ THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 279 

of utterance with very perfect clearness. His manner, I 
remember thinking, was unlike any that I had ever wit- 
nessed in the pulpit, and appeared to me to resemble 
rather that of a very earnest speaker at the hustings than 
the usual pulpit style. His sentences seemed to run down- 
hill, with continually increasing speed till they came to a 
full stop at the bottom. It was, I think, the only sermon 
I ever heard which I wished longer. He carried me with 
him completely, for the century was in those days, like me, 
young. But if I were to hear a similarly fervid discourse 
now on the same subject, I should surely desire some 
clearer setting forth of the difference between "knowl- 
edge" and " wisdom." 

It was about this time, i. e., in the year 1839, that my 
mother, who had been led, by I forget what special cir- 
cumstances, to take a great interest in the then hoped-for 
factory legislation, and in Lord Shaftesbury's efforts in 
that direction, determined to write a novel on the subject 
with the hope of doing something towards attracting the 
public mind to the question, and to visit Lancashire for 
the purpose of obtaining accurate information and local 
details. 

The novel was written, published in the then newly- 
invented fashion of monthly numbers, and called "Michael 
Armstrong." The publisher, Mr. Colburn, paid a long 
price for it, and did not complain of the result. But it 
never became one of the more popular among my mother's 
novels, sharing, I suppose, the fate of most novels written 
for some purpose other than that of amusing their readers. 
Novel readers are exceedingly quick to smell the rhubarb 
under the jam in the dose offered to them, and set them- 
selves against the undesired preachment as obstinately as 
the naughtiest little boy who ever refused to be physicked 
with nastiness for his good. 

My mother neglected no means of making the facts 
stated in her book authentic and accurate, and the jnise en 
scene of her story graphic and truthful. Of course I was 
the companion of her journey, and was more or less useful 
to her in searching for and collecting facts in some places 
where it would have been difficult for her to look for them. 



280 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

We carried with us a number of introductions from Lord 
Shaftesbury to a rather strange assortment of persons, 
whom his lordship had found useful both as collectors of 
trustworthy information and energetic agitators in favor 
of legislation. 

The following letter from the Earl of Shaftesbury, then 
Lord Ashley, to my mother on the subject, is illustrative 
of the strong interest he took in the matter, and of the 
means which he thought necessary for obtaining informa- 
tion respecting it : 

" Madam, — The letters to Macclesfield and Manchester shall be sent by 
this evening's post. On your arrival at Macclesfield be so kind as to ask 
for Reuben Bullock, of Roe Street, and at Manchester for John Dohert}', 
a small bookseller of Hyde's Cross in the town. They will show you the 
secrets of the place, as they showed them to me. 

"Mr. Wood himself is not now resident in Bradford, he is at present in 
Hampshire ; but his partner, Mr. Walker, carries out all his plans with the 
utmost energy. I will write to him to-night. The firm is known by the 
name of ' Wood & Walker.' Mr. Wood is a person whom you may easily 
see in London on your return to town. With every good wish and prayer 
for your success, I remain your very obedient servant, 

" Ashley. 

"P.S. — The Quarterly Review of December, 1836, contains an article on 
the factory system which would greatly assist by the references to the evi- 
dence before Committee, etc., etc." 

It is useless here and now to say anything of the hor- 
rors of uncivilized savagery and hopeless abject misery 
which we witnessed. They are painted in my mother's 
book, and should any reader ever refer to those pages for 
a picture of the state of things among the factory hands at 
that time, he may take with him my testimony to the fact 
that there was no exaggeration in the outlines of the pict- 
ure given. What we are there described to have seen, we 
saw. 

And let doctrinaire economists preach as they will, and 
Radical socialists abuse a measure which helps to take 
from them the fulcrum of the levers that are to upset the 
whole existing framework of society, it is impossible for 
one who did see those sights, and who has visited the 
same localities in later days, not to bless Lord Shaftes- 
bury's memory, ay, and the memory, if they have left 



IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 281 

any, of the humble assistants whose persistent efforts 
helped on the work. 

But the little knot of apostles to whom Lord Shaftesbury's 
letters introduced us, and into whose intimate conciliahules 
his recommendations caused our admittance, was to my 
mother, and yet more to me, to whom the main social part 
of the business naturally fell, a singularly new and strange 
one. They were all, or nearly all of them, men a little 
raised above the position of the factory hands, to the 
righting of whose wrongs they devoted their lives. They 
had been at some period of their lives, in almost every 
case, factory workers themselves, but had by various cir- 
cumstances, native talent, industry and energy, or favor- 
ing fortune — more likely by all together — managed to 
raise thej^selves out of the slough of despond in which 
their fellows were overwhelmed. One, I remember, a Mr. 
Doherty, a very small bookseller, to whom we were spe- 
cially recommended by Lord Shaftesbury. He was an 
Lishman, a Roman Catholic, and a furious Radical, but a 
very clever man. He was thoroughly acquainted with all 
that had been done, all that it was hoped to do, and with 
all the means that were being taken for the advancement 
of those hopes, over the entire district. 

He came and dined with us at our hotel, but it was, I 
remember, with much difficulty that we persuaded him to 
do so, and when at table his excitement in talking was so 
great and continuous that he could eat next to nothing. 

I remember, too, a Rev. Mr. Bull, to whom he intro- 
duced us subsequently at Bradford. We passed the 
evening with this gentleman at the house of Mr. Wood, 
of the firm of Walker & Wood, to whom also we had let- 
ters from Lord Shaftesbury. He, like our host, was an 
ardent advocate of the ten hours' bill, but, unlike him, had 
very little hope of legislative interference. Messrs. Walk- 
er & Wood employed three thousand hands. At a sacrifice 
of some thousands per annum, they worked their hands an 
hour less than any of their neighbors, which left the hours, 
as Mr. Wood strongly declared, still too long. Those gen- 
tlemen had built and endowed a church and a school for 
their hands, and everything was done in their mill which 



282 WHAT 1 REMEMBER. 

could humanize and improve the lot of the men, women, 
and children. Mr. Bull, who was to be the incumbent of 
the new church, then not quite finished, was far less hope- 
ful than his patron. He told me that he looked forward 
to some tremendous popular outbreak, and should not be 
surprised any night to hear that every mill in Bradford 
was in flames. 

But perhaps the most remarkable individual with whom 
this Lancashire journey brought us into contact was a Mr. 
Oastler. He was the Danton of the movement. He would 
liave been a remarkable man in any position or calling in 
life. He was a very large and powerfully framed man, 
over six feet in height, and proportionally large of limb 
and shoulder. He would, perhaps, hardly have been said 
to be a handsome man. His face was coarse, an^,„in parts 
of it, heavy. But he had a most commanding j^resence, 
and he was withal a picturesque — if it be not more ac- 
curate to say a statuesque — figure. Some of the features, 
too, were good. He had a very keen and intelligent blue 
eye, a mass of iron -gray hair, lips, the scornful curl of 
which was terrible, and with all this a voice stentorian in 
its power, and yet flexible, with a flow of language rapid 
and abundant as the flow of a great river, and as unstem- 
mable — the very beau ideal of a mob orator. 

" In the evening," says my diary, *' we drove out to 
Stayley Bridge to hear the preaching of Stephens, the 
man who has become the subject of so much newspaper 
celebrity." (Does any one remember who he was?) "We 
reached a miserable little chapel, filled to suffocation, and 
besieged by crowds around the doors. We entered through 
the vestry with great difficulty, and only so by the courtesy 
of sundry persons who relinquished their places on Do- 
herty's representing to them that we were strangers from 
a distance and friends to the cause. Presently Stephens 
arrived, and a man who had been ranting in the pulpit, 
merely, as it seemed, to occupy the people till he should 
come, immediately yielded his place to him. Stephens 
spoke well, and said some telling words in that place, of 
the cruel and relentless march of the great Juggernaut, 
Gold. But I did not hear anything which seemed to me 



IX THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 



283 



to justify bis great reputation. Really the most striking 
part of the performance, and that which I thought seemed 
to move the people most, was Oastler's mounting the pul- 
pit and giving out the verses of a hymn, one by one, which 
the congregation sang after him." So says my diary. 
Him I remember well, though Stephen^s not at all. I re- 
member, too, the pleasure w^ith w^hich I listened to his 
really fine delivery of the lines ; his pronunciation of the 
w^ords was not incorrect, and when he spoke, as I heard 
him on sundry subsequent occasions, his language, though 
emphasized rather, as it seemed, than marred by a certain 
roughness of Lancashire accent, was not that of an uncul- 
tivated man. Yes ! Oastler, the King of Lancashire, as 
the people liked to call him, was certainly a man of power, 
and an advocate whom few platform orators would have 
cared to meet as an adversary. 

When my mother's notes for her projected novel were 
completed we thought that before turning our faces south- 
ward we would pay a flying visit to the lake district, 
which was new ground to both of us. I remember well 
my intense delight at my first introduction to mountains 
worthy of the name. But I mean to mention here two 
only of my reminiscences of that first visit to lake-land. 

The first of these concerns an excursion on Windermere 
with Captain Hamilton, the author of " Cyril Thornton," 
which had at that time made its mark. He had recently 
received a new boat, which had been built for him in Nor- 
way. He expected great performances from her, and as 
there was a nice fresh wind idly curling the surface of the 
lake, he invited us to come out with him and try her, and 
in a minute or two we were speeding merrily before the 
breeze towards the opposite shore. But about the middle 
of the lake we found the water a good deal rougher, and 
the wind began to increase notably. Hamilton held the 
tiller, and not liking to make fast the halyard of the sail, 
gave me the rope to hold, with instructions to hold on till 
further orders. He was a perfect master of the business 
in hand, and so was the new boat a perfect mistress of her 
business, but this did not prevent us from getting thorough- 
ly ducked. My attention was sufliciently occupied in obey- 



284 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

ing my orders, and keeping my eye on him in expectation 
of fresh ones. The wind meanwhile increased from minute 
to minute, and I could not help perceiving that Hamilton, 
despite his cheery laughter, was becoming a little anxious. 
We got back, however, to the shore we had left after 
a good buffeting, and in the condition of drowned rats. 
My mother was helped out of the boat, and while she was 
making her way up the bank, and I was helping him to 
make the boat secure, I said, " Well ! the new boat has 
done bravely !" " Between you and me, my dear fellow," 
said he, as he laid his hand on my shoulder with a grip 
that I think must have left his thumb-mark on the skin, 
" if the boat had not behaved better than any boat of her 
class that I ever saw, there would have been a considera- 
ble probability of our being dined on by the fishes, in- 
stead of dining together, as I hope we are going to do. 
I have been blaming myself for taking your mother out ; 
but the truth is that on these lakes it is really impossible 
to tell for half an hour what the next half-hour may bnng 
forth." 

The one other incident of our visit to lake-land which I 
will record was our visit to Wordsworth. 

For my part I managed to incur his displeasure while 
yet on the threshold of his house. We were entering it 
together, when, observing a very fine bay-tree by the door- 
side, I unfortunately expressed surprise at its luxuriance 
in such a position. " Wh}^ should you be surprised?" he 
asked, suddenly turning upon me with much displeasure 
in his manner. Not a little disconcerted, I hesitatingly an- 
swered that I had imagined the bay-tree required more 
and greater warmth of sunshine than it could find there. 
" Pooh !" said he, much offended at the slight cast on his 
beloved locality, " what has sunshine got to do with it ?" 

I had not the readiness to reply, that in truth the world 
had abundance of testimony that the bay could flourish 
in those latitudes. But I think had I done so, it might 
have made my peace — for the remainder of that evening's 
experiences led me to imagine that the great poet was not 
insensible to incense from very small and humble wor- 
shippers. 



IN THE NORTH OF ENGLAND. 285 

The evening, I think I may say the entire evening, was 
occupied by a monologue addressed by the poet to my 
mother, who was, of course, extremely well pleased to lis- 
ten to it. I was chiefly occupied in talking to my old 
school-fellow, Herbert Hill, Southey's nephew, who also 
passed the evening there, and with whom I had a delight- 
ful walk the next day. But I did listen with much pleas- 
ure when Wordsworth recited his own lines descriptive of 
Little Langdale. He gave them really exquisitely. But 
his manner in conversation was not impressive. He sat 
continuously looking down with a green shade over his 
eyes even though it was twilight ; and his mode of speech 
and delivery suggested to me the epithet " maundering," 
though I was ashamed of myself for the thought with refer- 
ence to such a man. As we came away I cross-examined 
my mother much as to the subjects of his talk. She said it 
had been all about himself and his Avorks, and that she had 
been interested. But I could not extract from her a word 
that had passed worth recording. 

I do not think tliat he was popular with his neighbors 
generally. There were stories current, at Lowther among 
other places, which imputed to him a tendency to outstay 
his welcome w^lien invited to visit in a house. I suspect 
there was a little bit of a feud between him and my broth- 
er-in-law, Mr. Tilley, Avho was the post - office surveyor of 
the district. Wordsworth as receiver of taxes, or issuer 
of licenses, or whatever it was, would have increased the 
profits of his place if the mail-coach had paid its dues, 
whether for taxes or license, at his end of the journey in- 
stead of at Kendal, as had been the practice. But, of 
course, any such change would have been as much to the 
detriment of the man at Kendal as to Wordsworth's ad- 
vantage. And my brother-in-law, thinking such a change 
unjust, would not permit it. 

I cannot say that, on the whole, the impression made on 
me by the poet on that occasion (always with the notable 
exception of his recital of his own poetry) was a pleasant 
one. There was something in the manner in which he al- 
most perfunctorily, as it seemed, uttered his long mono- 
logue, that suggested the idea of the performance of a 



286 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

part got up to order, and repeated without much modifi- 
cation as often as lion-hunters, duly authorized for the 
sport in those locahties, might call upon him for it. I dare 
say the case is analogous to that of the hero and the valet, 
but such was my impression. 



CHAPTER XXL 

JOURXEY IN BRITTANY. 

I HAD been for some time past, as has been said, trying 
my hand, not without success, at a great variety of arti- 
cles in all sorts of reviews, magazines, and newspapers. 
I already considered mj^self a member of the guild of pro- 
fessional writers. I had done much business with pub- 
lishers on behalf of my mother, and some for other per- 
sons, and talked glibly of copyrights, editions, and tokens. 

(I fancy, by-the-bye, that the latter term has somewhat 
fallen out of use in these latter days, whether from any 
change of the methods used by printers or publishers I do 
not know. But it strikes me that many youngsters, even 
of the scribbling tribe, may not know that the phrase " a 
token" had no connection whatever with signs and won- 
ders of any sort, but simply meant two hundred and fifty 
copies.) 

And being thus equipped, I began to think that it was 
time that I should attempt a hook. During a previous 
hurried scamper in Normandy I had just a glimpse of 
Brittany, which greatly excited my desire to see more of 
it. So I pitched on a tour in Brittany as the subject of 
my first attempt. 

Those were happy days, when all the habitable globe 
had not been run over by thousands of tourists, hundreds 
of whom are desirous of describing their doings in print 
— not but that the notion, whether a publisher's or writ- 
er's notion, that new ground is needed for the production 
of a good and amusing book of travels, is other than a 
great mistake. I forget what proposing author it was, 
who in answer to a publisher urging the fact that " a 
dozen writers have told us all about so and so," replied, 
"But /have not told you what Zhave seen and thought 
about it." But if I had been the publisher I should at 



288 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

once have asked to see his MS. The days when a capital 
book may be written on a voyage autour de ma chainhre 
are as present as ever they were. And " A Summer After- 
noon's Walk to Highgate " might be the subject of a de- 
lightful book if only the writer were the right man. 

Brittany, however, really was in those days to a great 
extent fresh ground, and the strangely secluded circum- 
stances of its population offered much tempting material 
to the book-making tourist. All this is now at an end ; 
not so much because the country has been the subject of 
sundry good books of travel, as because the people and 
their mode of life, the country and its specialties, have all 
been utterly changed by the pleasant, convenient, indis- 
pensable, abominable railway, which in its merciless, irre- 
sistible tramp across the world crushes into a dead level 
of uninteresting monotony so manj^ varieties of character, 
manners, and peculiarities. And thus " the individual 
withers, and the world is more and more !" But is the 
world more and more in any sense that can be admit- 
ted to be desirable, in view of the eternity of that same 
individual. 

As for the Bretons, the individual has withered to that 
extent that he now wears trousers instead of breeches, 
while his world has become more and more assimilated to 
that of the Faubourg St. Antoine, with the result of losing 
all those really very notable and stiff and sturdy virtues 
wdiich differentiated the Breton peasant, when I first knew 
him, while it would be difficult indeed to say what it has 
gained. At all events the progress which can be stated is 
mainly to be stated in negatives. The Breton, as I first 
knew him, believed in all sorts of superstitious rubbish. 
He now believes in nothing at all. He was disposed to 
honor and respect God, and his priest, and his seigneur 
perhaps somewhat too indiscriminately. Now he neither 
honors nor respects any earthly or heavenly thing. These, 
at least, were the observations which a second, or, rather, 
third visit to the country a few years ago suggested to 
me, mainly, it is true, as regards the urban population. 
And without going into any of the deeper matters which 
such clianges suggest to one's consideration, there can be 



JOUKNEY IN BRITTANY. 289 

no possible doubt as to the fact that the country and its 
people are infinitely less interesting than they were. 

My plans were soon made, and I hastened to lay them 
before Mr. Colburn, who was at that time publishing for 
my mother. The trip was my main object, and I should 
have been perfectly contented with terms that paid all the 
expenses of it. Di auctins fecerimt, and I came home from 
my ramble with a good round sum in my pocket. 

I was not greedy of money in those days, and had no 
unscriptural hankerings after laying up treasure upon 
earth. All I wanted was a sufficient supply for my un- 
ceasing expenditure in locomotion and inn bills — the lat- 
ter, be it observed, always on a most economical scale. I 
was not a profitable customer ; I took nothing " for the 
good of the house." I had a Gargantuesque appetite, 
and needed food of some sort in proportion to its de- 
mands. I neither took, or cared to take, any wine with 
my dinner, and never wanted any descrij^tiou of " night- 
cap." As for accommodation for the night, anything suf- 
ficed me that gave me a clean bed and a sufficient window- 
opening on fresh air, under such conditions as made it 
possible for me to have it open all night. To the present 
day I cannot sleep to my liking in a closed chamber; and 
before now, on the top of the Righi, have had my bed 
clothes blown off my bed, and snow deposited where they 
should have been. 

But quo mitsa tendis ? I was talking about my travels 
in Brittany. 

I do not think my book was a bad coup cPessai. I re- 
member old John Murray coming out to me into the front 
office in Albemarle Street, where I was on some business 
of my mother's, with a broad, good-natured smile on his 
face, and putting into my hands the Times of that morn- 
ing, with a favorable notice of the book, saying as he did 
so, " There, so you have waked this morning to find your- 
self famous !" And, what was more to the purpose, my 
publisher was content with the result, as was evidenced 
by his offering me similar terms for another book of the 
same description — of which, more anon. 

As my volumes on Brittany, published in 1840, are lit- 
is 



290 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

tie likely to come under the eye of any reader at the pres- 
ent day, and as the passage I am about to quote indicates 
accurately enough the main point of difference between 
what the traveller at that day saw and what the traveller 
of the present day may see, I think I may be pardoned for 
giving it. 

"We had observed that at Broons a style of coiffure 
which was new to us prevailed ; and my companion wished 
to add a sketch of it to his fast-increasing collection of 
Breton costumes. With this view, he had begun making 
love to the maid a little, to induce her to do so much vio- 
lence to her maiden modesty as to sit to him for a few 
minutes, when a far better opportunity of achieving his 
object presented itself. 

" The landlady's daughter, a very pretty little girl about 
fourteen years old, was going to be confirmed, and had 
just come down-stairs to her mother, who was sitting knit- 
ting in the salle d manger, for inspection and approval be- 
fore she started. Of course, upon such an occasion, the 
art of the bla?ichisseuse was taxed to the utmost. Lace 
was not spared; and the most recherche coiffure was 
adopted that the rigorous immutability of village modes 
would permit. 

"It would seem that the fickleness of fashion exercises 
in constant local variations that mutability which is ut- 
terly denied to it in Brittany with regard to time. Every 
district, almost every commune, has its own peculiar * mode' 
(for both sexes), which changes not from generation to 
generation. As the mothers dress, so do their daughters, 
so did their grandmothers, and so will their granddaugh- 
ters." [But I reckoned, when writing thus, without the 
railroad and its consequences.] " If a woman of one par- 
ish marries, or takes service, or for any other cause resides 
in another, she still retains the mode of her native village ; 
and thus carries about her a mark which is to those among 
whom she is a sojourner a well-recognized indication of 
the place whence she comes, and to herself a cherished 
souvenir of the home which she never ceases to consider 
her own country. 

"But though the form of the dress is invariable, and 



JOURNEY IN BRITTANY. 291 

every inhabitant of the commune, from the wealthy farm- 
er's wife to the poorest cottager who earns her black 
bread by labor in the fields, would as soon think of adopt- 
ing male attire as of innovating on the immemorial inode 
dupays, yet the quality of the materials allows scope for 
wealth and female coquetry to show themselves. Thus 
the invariable mode de Broons^ with its trifling difference 
in form, which in the eye of the inhabitants made it as 
different as light from darkness from the mode de St. 
Joucm, was equally observable in the coarse linen coiffe 
of the maid, and the richly laced and beautifully ' got-up ' 
head-dress of the daughter of the house. 

"A very slight observation of human nature, under a 
few only of its various phases, may suffice to show that 
the instinct which prompts a woman to adorn her person 
to the best possible advantage is not the hothouse growth 
of cities, but a genuine wild-flower of nature. No high- 
born beauty ever more repeatedly or anxiously consulted 
her wax-lit Psyche on every faultless point of hair, face, 
neck, feet, and figure, before descending to the carriage 
for her first ball, than did our young Bretonne again and 
again recur to the mirror, which occupied the pier be- 
tween the two windows of the salle d manger, before sally- 
ing forth on the great occasion of her confirmation. 

"The dear object of girlish ambition was the same to 
both; but the simplicity of the little pays^wwe showed it- 
self in the utter absence of any wish to conceal her anx- 
iety upon the subject. Though delighted with our com- 
pliments on her appearance, our presence by no means 
prevented her from springing upon a chair every other 
minute to obtain a fuller view of the tout ensemble of her 
figure. Again and again the modest kerchief was ar- 
ranged and rearranged to show a hair's-breadth more or 
a hair's-breadth less of her brown but round and taper 
throat. Repeatedly, before it could be finally adjusted to 
her satisfaction, was the delicate fabric of her coiffure 
moved with cautious care and dainty touch a leetle back- 
warder or 2, leetle forwarder over her sunburned brow. 

*' Many were the pokings and pinchings of frock and 
apron, the smoothings down before and twitchings down 



292 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

behind of the not less anxious mother. Often did she 
retreat to examine more correctly the general effect of 
the coup d^oeil, and as often return to rectify some inju- 
dicious pin or remodel some rebellious fold. When all 
was at length completed, and the well-pleased parent had 
received from the servants, called in for the express pur- 
pose, the expected tribute of admiration, the little beauty 
took 'L'Imitation de la Vierge' in her hand, and tripped 
across to a convent of Sceurs Grises on the other side 
of the way to receive their last instructions and admoni- 
tions respecting her behavior when she should be present- 
ed to the bishop, while her mother screamed after her not 
to forget to pull up her frock when she knelt down. 

*'A11 the time employed in this little revision of the 
toilet had not been left unimproved by my companion, 
who at the end of it produced and showed to the proud 
mother an admirable full-length sketch of her pretty dar- 
ling. The delighted astonishment of the poor woman, 
and her accent, as she exclaimed, 'O, si c^etait pour moiP 
and then blushed to the temples at what she had said, 
were irresistible, and the good-natured artist was fain to 
make her a present of the drawing." 

My Breton book ("though I says it as shouldn't") is 
not a bad one, especially as regards the upper or north- 
ern part of the province. That which concerns lower 
Brittany is very imperfect, mainly, I take it, because I 
had already nearly filled my destined two volumes Avhen 
I reached it. I find there, however, the following notice 
of the sardine fishery, which has some interest at the pres- 
ent day. Perhaps the majority of the thousands of Eng- 
lish people who nowadays have " sardines" on their break- 
fast-table every morning, are not aware that the contents 
of a very large number of the little tin boxes which are 
supposed to contain the delicacy are not sardines at all. 
They are very ej^cellent little fishes, but not sardines ; 
for the enormously increased demand for them has out- 
stripped the supply. In the days Avhen the following 
sentences were written, sardines might certainly be had 
in London (as what might not ?) at such shops as Fort- 



JOUKNEY IN BRITTANY. 293 

num & Mason's, but they y/ere costly, and by no means 
commonly met with. 

On reaching Douarnenez in the summer of 1839, 1 wrote : 
" The whole poj^ulation and the existence of Douarnenez 
depend on the sardine fishery. This delicious little fish, 
which the gourmands of Paris so much delight in, when 
preserved in oil, and sent to their capital in those little 
tin boxes whose look must be familiar to all icho have 
frequented the Parisian breakfast - houses'''^ [but is now 
more familiar to all who have entered any grocer's shop 
throughout the length and breadth of England], "is still 
more exquisite when eaten fresh on the shores which it 
frequents. They are caught in immense quantities along 
the whole of the southern coast of Brittany, and on the 
western shore of Finisterre as far to the northward as 
Brest, which, I believe, is the northern limit of the fish- 
ery. They come into season about the middle of June, 
and are then sold in great quantities in all the markets 
of southern Brittany at two, three, or four sous a dozen, 
according to the aoundance of the fishery and the dis- 
tance of the market from the coast. I was told that the 
commerce in sardines along the coast from I'Orient to 
Brest amounted to three millions of francs annually." 

At the present day it must be enormously larger. I 
remember well the exceeding plentifulness of the little 
fishes — none of them so large as many of those which now 
fill the so-called sardine boxes — when I was at Douarnenez 
in 1839. All the men, women, and children in the place 
seemed to be feasting upon them all day long. Plates 
with heaps of them fried and piled up crosswise, like tim- 
ber in a timber-yard, were to be seen out-doors and in- 
doors, wherever three or four people could be found to- 
gether. All this was a thing of the past when I revisited 
Douarnenez in 1866. Every fish was then needed for the 
tinning business. They were to be had, of course, by or- 
dering and paying for them, but very few indeed were 
consumed by the population of the place. 

And this subject reminds me of another fishery which 
I witnessed a few months ago — last March — at Sestri di 
Ponente, near Genoa. We frequently saw nearly the 



294 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

whole of the fisher population of the place engaged in 
dragging from the water on to the sands enormously long 
nets, which had been previously carried out by boats to 
a distance not more I think than three or four hundred 
yards from the shore. From these nets, when at last they 
were landed after an hour or so of continual dragging by 
a dozen or twenty men and women, were taken huge bas- 
ketfuls of silvery little fish sparkling in the sun, exactly 
like whitebait. I had always supposed that whitebait was a 
specialty of the Thames. Whether an ichthyologist would 
have pronounced the little Sestri fishes to be the same 
creatures as those which British statesmen consume at 
Greenwich I cannot say ; but we ate them frequently at 
the hotel under the name of gianchetti, and could find 7io 
difference between them and the Greenwich delicacy. 
The season for them did not seem to last above two or 
three weeks. The fishermen continued to drag their net, 
but caught other fishes instead of gianchetti. But while 
it lasted the plenty of them was prodigious. All Sestri 
was eating them, as all Douarnenez ate sardines in the 
old days. When the net with its sparkling cargo was 
dragged up on the sand and the contents were being shov- 
elled into huge baskets to be carried up into the town, the 
men would take up handfuls of theiii, fresh, and I sup- 
pose still living, from the sea, and plunging their bearded 
mouths in them, eat them up by hundreds. The children, 
too, irrepressibly thronging round the net, would pick 
from its meshes the fishes which adhered to them and eat 
them, as more inland rising generations eat blackberries. 
I did not try the experiment of eating them thus, as one 
eats oysters, but I can testify that, crisply fried, and eaten 
with brown bread and butter and lemon juice, they were 
remarkably good. 

Fortified by the excellent example of Sir Francis Doyle, 
who in his extremely amusing volume of " Reminiscences" 
gives as a reason for disregarding the claims of chronol- 
ogy in the composition of it, the chances that he might 
forget the matter he had in his mind if he did not book 
it at once, I have ventured for the same reason to do the 
same thing here. But I have an older authority for the 



JOURNEY IN BRITTANY. 295 

practice in question, which Sir Francis is hardly likely 
to have lighted on. That^ learned antiquary and porten- 
tously voluminous writer, Francesco Cancellieri, who was 
well known to the Roman world in the latter years of tlio 
last, and the earliest years of the present century, used 
to compose his innumerable works upon a similar prin- 
ciple. And when attacked by the critics his contempora- 
ries, who, Italian-like, supposed academically correct form 
to be the most important thing in any literary work, he 
defended himself on the same ground. " If I don't catch 
it 71010, I may probably forget it ; and is the world to be 
deprived of the information it is in my power to give it 
for the sake of the formal correctness of my work ?" 

There is another passage in my book on Brittany re- 
specting which it would be interesting to know whether 
recent travellers can report that the state of things there 
described no longer exists. I wrote in 1839 : 

" Very near Treguier, on a spot appropriately selected 
for such a worship — the barren top of a bleak, unsheltered 
eminence — stands the chapel of Notre Dame de la Haine! 
Our Lady of Hatred ! The most fiendish of human pas- 
sions is supposed to be under the protection of Christ's 
religion ! What is this but a fragment of pure and un- 
mixed paganism, unchanged except in the appellation of 
its idol, which has remained among these lineal descen- 
dants of the Armorican Druids for more than a thousand 
years after Christianity has become the professed religion 
of the country ! Altars, professedly Christian, were raised 
under the protection of the Protean Virgin, to the demon 
Hatred ; and have continued to the present day to receive 
an unholy worship from blinded bigots, who hope to ob- 
tain Heaven's patronage and assistance for thoughts and 
wishes which they would be ashamed to breathe to man. 
Three Ai^es repeated with devotion at this odious and mel- 
ancholy shrine are firmly believed to have the power to 
cause, within the year, the certain death of the person 
against whom the assistance of Our Lady of Hatred has 
been invoked. And it is said that even yet occasionally, 
in the silence and obscurity of the evening, the figure of 
some assassin worshipper at this accursed shrine may be 



29G WHAT I REMEMBER. 

seen to glide rapidly from the solitary spot, where he has 
spoken the unhallowed prayer whose mystic might has 
doomed to death the enemy he hatesr 

I must tell one other story of ray Breton recollections, 
which refers to a time much subsequent to the publica- 
tion of the book I have been quoting. It was in 1866 
that I revisited Brittany in company with my present 
wife ; and one of the objects of our little tour was the 
Finisterre land's end at the extreme point of the hornlike 
promontory which forms the department so named. We 
found some difficulty in reaching the spot, not the least 
part of which was caused by the necessity of threading 
our way, when in the immediate neighborhood of the 
cliffs, among enormous masses of seaweed stacked in huge 
heaps and left to undergo the process of decay, which 
turns it into very valuable manure. The odor which im- 
pregnated the whole surrounding atmosphere from these 
heaps was decidedly the worst and most asphyxiating I 
ever experienced. 

We stood at last on the utmost finis terrce and looked 
over the Atlantic not only from the lighthouse, which, 
built three hundred feet above the sea-level, is often, we 
were told, drenched by storm-driven spray, but from va- 
rious points of the tremendous rocks also. They are tre- 
mendous, in truth. The scene is a much grander one 
than that at our own " Land's End," which I visited a 
month or two ago. The cliffs are much higher, the rocks 
are more varied in their forms — more cruelly savage-look- 
ing, and the cleavages of them are on a larger scale. The 
spot was one of the most profound solitude, for we were 
far from the lighthouse, and the scream of the white gulls 
as they started from their roosting-places on the face of 
the rocks, or returned to them from their swirling flights, 
were the only indication of the presence of any creature 
having the breath of life. 

The rock ledges, among which we were clambering, 
were in many places fearful spots enough — places where 
a stumble or a divagation of the foot but six or eight 
inches from the narrow path would have precipitated the 
blunderer to assured and inevitable destruction. " Here," 



JOURNEY IN BRITTANY. 297 

said I to my wife, as we stood side by side on one such 
ledge, " would be the place for a husband, who wanted 
to get rid of his wife, to accomplish his purpose. Done 
in ten seconds ! With absolute certainty ! One push would 
suffice ! No cry of any more avail than the screams of 
those gulls ! And no possibility of the deed being wit- 
nessed by any mortal eye !" 

I had hardly got the words out of my mouth before our 
ears were startled by a voice hailing us ; and after some 
searching of the eye we espied a man engaged in seeking 
sea-fowls' eggs, w^ho had placed himself in a position winch 
I should have thought it absolutely impossible to reach, 
whence he had seen us, as we now saw him ! 

Let this then, my brethren, be a warning to you ! 
13* 



CHAPTER XXir. 

AT PENKITH. AT PARIS. 

Returning from my Breton journey, I reached my 
mother's house in York Street on the 23d of July, 1839, 
and on the 26th of the same month left London with her 
to visit my married sister in her new home at Penrith, 
where Mr. Tilley had established himself as post-office 
surveyor of the northern district. His home was a pretty 
house situated between the town and the well-known bea- 
con on the hill to the north of it. 

The first persons I became acquainted with in this, to 
me, entirely new region, were Sir George Musgrave, of 
Edenhall, and his wife, who was a sister of Sir James 
Graham. My brother-in-law took me over to Edenhall, a 
lovely walk from Penrith, and we found both Sir George 
and Lady Musgrave at home. We — my mother and I — 
had not at that time conceived the idea of becoming resi- 
dents at Penrith. But when, subsequently, we were led 
to do so, we found extremely pleasant and friendly neigh- 
bors at Edenhall, and though not, in strict chronology, 
due in this place, I may throw together my few Reminis- 
cences of Sir George. 

He was the heau ideal of a country gentleman of the old 
school. He rarely or never went to London — not, as was 
the case with some of his neighbors, because the expense 
of a season there was formidable, for his estate was a fine 
one, and he was a rich man, living largely within his in- 
come, but because his idea was that a country gentleman's 
proper place was on his own acres, and because London 
had no temptations for him. He was said to be the best 
landlord in the county, and really seemed to look upon all 
his numerous tenants and all their laborers as his born 
subjects, to whom protection, kindness, assistance, and 
general looking-after were due in return for their fealty 



AT PENRITH. 2-99 

and loyal attachment. I think he would have kicked off 
his land (and he was a man who conld kick) any man who 
talked in his hearing of the purely commercial relation- 
ship between a landlord and his tenants. Of course he 
was adored by all the country side. No doubt the stout 
Cumberland and Westmoreland farmers and hinds were 
good and loyal subjects of Queen Victoria, but for all 
practical purposes of reverence and obedience Musgrave 
was king at Edenhall. 

Lady Musgrave was a particularly ladylike woman, the 
marked elegance of whose breeding might, with advantage, 
have given the tone to many a London drawing-room'. 
I have seen her surrounded by country neighbors, and 
though she was vdut inter ignes luna minores, I never saw 
the country squire's or country parson's wife who was not 
perfectly happy and at ease in her drawing-room, while, 
unconsciously, all the time taking a lesson in good-breed- 
ing and ladylike manners. She was thoroughly a help- 
meet for her husband in all his care for his people. I be- 
lieve that both he and she were convinced, at the bottom 
of their hearts, that Cumberland and Westmoreland con- 
stituted the choicest, best, and most highly-civilized part 
of England. And she was one of those of whom I was 
thinking when, in a former chapter, I spoke of highly- 
educated people whom I had known to affect provincialism 
of speech. Lady Musgrave always, or, perhaps, it would 
be more correct to say generally, called a cow a "coo;" 
and though I suspect she would have left Westmoreland 
behind if evil fate had called her to London, on her own 
hillsides she preferred the accents of the native speech. 

Sir George had, or affected to have, considerable respect 
for all the little local superstitions and beliefs which are so 
prevalent in that "north countree." And the kindness 
with which he welcomed us as neighbors when we built a 
house and came to live there was shown, despite a strong 
feeling which he had, or affected to have, with regard to 
an incident which fatally marked our debut in that coun- 
try. 

We bought a field in a very beautiful situation, over- 
looking the ruins of Brougham Castle and the confluence 



300 WHAT I REMEMBER. ■ 

of the Eden with the Lowther, and proceeded to build a 
house on the higher part of it. But there was a consider- 
able drop from the lower limit of our ground to the road 
which skirted the property and furnished the only access 
to it. There was some difficulty, therefore, in contriving 
a tolerable entrance from the road for wheel-traffic, and it 
was found necessary to cause a tiny little spring that rose 
in the bank by the roadside to change its course in some 
small degree. The affair seemed to us a matter of infini- 
tesimal importance, but Sir George was dismayed. We 
had moved, he said, a holy well, and the consequence would 
surely be that we should never succeed in establishing our- 
selves in that spot. 

And, surely enough, we never did so succeed; for, after 
having built a very nice little house, and lived in it one 
winter and half a summer, we — for I cannot say that it 
was my mother more than I, or I more than my mother — 
made up our minds that " the sun yoked his horses too far 
from Penrith town," and that we had had enough of it* 
Sir George, of course, when he heard our determination, 
while he expressed all j^ossible regret at losing us as neigh- 
bors, said that he knew perfectly well that it must be so, 
from the time that we so recklessly meddled with the holy 
well. 

He was the most hospitable man in the world, and could 
never let many days pass without asking us to dine with 
liim. But his hospitality was of quite the old-world school. 
One day — but that was after our journey to Italy, and 
when he had become intimate with us — being in a hurry 
to get back into the drawing-room to rejoin a pretty girl 
next whom I had sat at dinner, I tried to escape from the 
dining-room. " Come back !" he roared, before I could 
get to the door ; " we won't have any of your d — d fori- 
neering habits here ! Come back and stick to your wine, 
or by the Lord I'll have the door locked." 

He was, unlike most men of his sort, not very fond of 
riding, but was a great walker. He used to take the men 
he could get to walk with him a tramp over the hill till 
they were fain to cry " Hold ! enough !" But there I was 
his match. 



AT PEXRITH. 301 

Most of my readers have probably heard of the " Luck 
of Edenhal]," for, besides Longfellow's * well-known poem, 
the legend relating to it has often been told in print. I 
refer to it here merely to mention a curious trait of char- 
acter in Sir Georo-Q Musofrave in connection with it. The 
"Luck of Edenhall" is an ancient decorated glass goblet, 
which has belonged to the Musgraves time out of mind, 
and which bears on it the legend : 

'* When this cup shall break or fall, 
Farewell the luck of Edenhall." 

After wliat I have written of Sir George and the holy 
well, which w^e so unfortunately moved from its proper 
site, it will be readily imagined that he attached no small 
importance to the safe-keeping of the "Luck ;" and, truly, 
he did so. But, instead of simply locking it up, where 
he might feel sure it could neither break nor fall, he would 
show it to all visitors, and, not content with that, would 
insist on their taking it into their hands to examine and 
handle it. He maintained that otherwise there was no 
fair submission to the test of luck which was intended by 
the inscription. It would have been mere cowardly pre- 
varication to lock it away under circumstances which took 
the matter out of the dominion of "luck" altogether. I 
wonder that, under such circumstances, it has not fallen, 
for the nervous trepidation of the folks who were made 
to handle it may be imagined. 

I made another friend at Penrith in the person of a man 
as strongly contrasted with Sir George Musgrave as two 
north-country Englishmen could well be. This was a Dr. 
Kicholson, who has died within the last few months, to 
my great regret, for I had promised myself the pleas- 
ure of taking him by the hand yet once again before 
starting on the journey on which we may or may not 
meet. He was my senior by a few years, but not by 
many. Nicholson was a man of very extensive reading 

* Subsequently to the publication of his poem Musgrave asked Longfel- 
low to dine at Edenhall, and "picked a crow" with him on the conclusion 
of the poem, which represents the " Luck " to have been broken, which 
Sir George considered a flight of imagination quite transcending all per- 
missible poetical license. 



302 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

and of profound Biblical learning. It may be deemed 
surprising by others, as it was and is to me, that such a man 
should have been an earnest and thoroughly convinced 
Swedenborgian ; but such was the case. And I can con- 
scientiously give this testimony to the excellence of that 
creed — that it produced in the person of its learned north- 
country disciple at least one truly good and amiable man. 
Dr. Nicholson was emphatically such in all the relations 
of life. He was the good and loving husband of a very 
charming wife, the unremittingly careful and affectionate 
father of a large family, a delightful host at his own table, 
and an excellent and instructive companion over a cigar 
(hardly correctly alluded to in the singular number !), and 
a most jiiCU7idus comes in a tramp over the hills. 

Amusing to me still is the contrast between those Cum- 
berland walks with Sir George and my ramblings over the 
same or nearly the same ground with the meditative Swe- 
denborgian doctor ; the first always pushing ahead as if 
shouldering along a victorious path through life, knowing 
the history of every foot of ground he passed over, inter- 
ested in every detail of it, and with an air of continually 
saying " Ha ! ha !" among the breezy trumpets of those 
hills, like the scriptural war-horse ; the second with his 
gaze very imperfectly turned outward, but very fruitfully 
turned inward, frequently pausing, with argumentative 
finger laid on his companion's breast, and smile, half satir- 
ical, half kindly, as the flow of discourse revealed theolog- 
ical lacunm in my acquirements, which, I fear, irreparably 
and most unfairly injured the Regius professor of divinity 
in the mind of the German graduate. For Nicholson was 
a theological "doctor" by virtue of a degree from I for- 
get what German university, and had a low estimate, per- 
haps more justified at that day than it would be now, of 
the extent and calibre of Oxford theological learning. He 
was himself a disciple and enthusiastic admirer of Ewald, 
a very learned Hebraist, and an unflagging student. 

I was more capable of appreciating at its due value the 
extent and accuracy of his knowledge upon another sub- 
ject — a leg of mutton ! It may be a mere coincidence, 
but, certainly, the most learned Hebraist it was ever my 



AT PENRITH. 303 

lot to know was also the best and most satisfactory carver 
of a leg of mutton. 

Nobody knows anything about mutton in these days, 
for the very sufficient reason that there is no mutton worth 
knowing anything about. Scientific breeding has improved 
it off the face of the earth. The immature meat is killed 
at two years old, and only we few survivors of a former 
generation know how little like it is to the mutton of former 
days. The Monmouthshire farmers told me the other day 
that they could not keep Welsh sheep of pure breed, be- 
cause nothing under an eight-foot park paling would con- 
fine them. Just as if they did not jump in the days when 
I jumped too ! Believe me, my young friends, that George 
the Third knev*^ what he was talking about (as upon cer- 
tain other occasions) when he said that very little venison 
was equal to a haunch of four-year-old mutton. And the 
gravy ! — chocolate-colored, not pink, my innocent young 
friends. Ichabod ! Ichabod! 

My uncle, too, Mr. Partington— w^ho married my fa- 
ther's sister, and lived many years chairman of quarter 
sessions at Offham, among the South Downs, near Lewes 
— was a man who understood mutton. A little silver 
saucepan was placed by his side when the leg of mut- 
ton, or sometimes two, about as big as fine fowls, were 
placed in one dish before him. Then, after the mutton 
had been cut, the abundantly flowing gravy was trans- 
ferred to the saucepan, a couple of glasses of tawny old port 
and a quantum suff. of cUrrant jelly and cayenne were 
added, the whole was warmed in the dining-room, and 
then — we ate mutton, as I shall never eat it again in this 
world. 

Well ! revenir d nos moutons we never, never shall ! 
So we must, alas ! do the reverse in returning to my Pen- 
rith reminiscences. 

I remember specially an excellent old fellow and very 
friendly neighbor, Colonel Macleod, a bachelor, who hav- 
ing fallen in love with a very beautiful spot, in the valley 
of the Lowther, built an ugly brick house, three stories 
high, because, as he said, he was so greedy of the view, 
forgetful, apparently, that he was providing it mainly for 



304 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

his maid-servants. Then there was the old maiden lady, 
with a name that might have been fomid in north-country 
annals at almost any date during the last seven hundred 
years, who mildly and maternally corrected my sister 
at table for speaking of vol-au-vent, telling her that the 
correct expression Avas voulez-vous! My sister always 
adopted the old lady's correction in future, at least when 
addressing her. 

Then there were two pretty girls, Margaret and Char- 
lotte Story, the nieces of old De Whelpdale, the lord of 
the manor. I think he and Mrs. De Whelpdale never left 
their room, for I do not remember to have ever seen either 
of them; nor do I remember that I at all resented their 
absence from the drawing-room when I used to call at the 
manor-house. One of the girls was understood to be en- 
gaged to be married to a far-distant lieutenant, of whom 
Penrith knew nothing, which circumstance gave rise to 
sundry ingenious conceits in the acrostic line, based on 
allusions to " his story " and " mystery." I wonder 
whether Charlotte is alive. If she is, and should see this 
page, she will remember. It was for her sake that I de- 
serted, or tried to desert, Sir George's port, as related 
above. 

We left Penrith on that occasion without having form- 
ed any decided intention of establishing ourselves there, 
and returned to London towards the end of August, 1839. 
During the next two months I was hard at work complet- 
ing the MS. of my volumes on Brittany. And in Novem- 
ber of the same year, after that long fast from all journey- 
ing, my mother and I left London for a second visit to 
Paris. But we did not on this occasion travel together. 

I left London some days earlier than she did, and 
travelled by Ostend, Cologne, and Mannheim, my princi- 
pal object being to visit my old friend, Mrs. Fauche, who 
was living at the latter place. I passed three or four very 
pleasant days there, including, as I find by my diary, sun- 
dry agreeable jaunts to Heidelberg, Carlsruhe, etc. My 
mother and I had arranged to meet at Paris on the 4th of 
December, and at that date I punctually turned up there. 

I think that I saw Paris and the Parisians much more 



AT PARIS. 305 

satisfactorily on this occasion than during my first visit ; 
and I suspect that some of the recollections recorded in 
these pages as connected with my first visit to Paris be- 
long really to this second stay there , especially I think 
that this must have been the case with regard to my ac- 
quaintance Avith Chateaubriand, though I certainly was 
introduced to him at the earlier period, for I find the 
record of much talk with him about Brittany, which was 
a specially vv^elcome subject to him. 

It was during this second visit that I became acquaint- 
ed with Henry Bulwer, afterwards Lord Dalling, and at 
that time first secretary of the British legation. My visits 
were generally, perhaps always, paid to him when he was 
in bed, where he was lying confined by, if I remembel- 
rightly, a broken leg. I used to find his bed covered with 
papers and blue-books, and the like. And I was told that 
the whole, or at all events the more important part of the 
business of the embassy was done by him as he lay there 
on the bed, which must have been for many a long hour a 
bed of suffering. 

Despite certain affectations — which were so palpably af- 
fectations, and scarcely pretended to be aught else, that 
there was little or nothing annoying or offensive in them 
— he was a very agreeable man, and was unquestionably a 
very brilliant one. He came to dine with me, I remember, 
many years afterwards at my house in Florence, when he 
insisted (the dining-room being on the first floor) on being 
carried up-stairs, as we thought at the time very unnec- 
essarily. But for aught I know such suspicion may have 
wronged him. At all events his disability, whatever it 
may have been, did not prevent him from making himself 
very agreeable. 

One of our guests upon that same occasion (I must drag 
the mention of the fact in head and shoulders here, or 
else I shall forget it) was that extraordinary man, Baron 
Ward, who w^as, or perhaps I ought to say at that time 
had been, prime-minister and general administrator to the 
Duke of Lucca. Ward had been originally brought from 
Yorkshire to be an assistant in the ducal stables. There, 
doubtless because he knew more about the business than' 



306 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

anybody else concerned with it, he soon became chief. 
In that capacity he made himself so acceptable to the 
duke that he was taken from the stables to be his high- 
ness's personal attendant. His excellence in that position 
soon enlarged his duties to those of controller of the whole 
ducal household. And thence, by degrees that were more 
imperceptible in the case of such a government than they 
could have been in a larger and more regularly adminis- 
tered state. Ward became the recognized and nearly all- 
powerful head, manager, and ruler of the little Duchy of 
Lucca. And I believe the strange promotion was much 
for the advantage of the duke and of the duke's subjects. 
Ward, I take it, never robbed him or any one else. And 
this eccentric specialty the duke, though he was no Solo- 
mon, had the wit to discover. In his cups the ex-groom, 
ex-valet, was not reticent about his sovereign master, 
and his talk was not altogether of an edifying nature. 
One sally sticks in my memory. " Ah, yes ! He was 
a grand favorite with the women. But I have had the 
grooming of him ; and it was a wuss job than ever groom- 
ing his bosses was !" 

Ward got very drunk that night, I remember, and we 
deemed it fortunate that our diplomatist guest had de- 
parted before the outward signs of his condition became 
manifest. 

Henry Bulwer, by mere circumstance of synchronism, 
has suggested the remembrance of Ward, Ward has called 
up the I)uke of Lucca, and he brings with him a host of 
Baths of Lucca reminiscences respecting his serene high- 
ness and others. But all these mu8t be left to find their 
places, if anywhere, when I come to them later on, or we 
shall never get back to Paris. 

It was on this our second visit to IJutetia Parisiorum 
that my mother and I made acquaintance with a yqyj 
specially charming family of the name of D'Henin. The 
family circle consisted of General le Vicomte D'Henin, 
his English wife, and their daughter. The general was a 
delightful old man, more like an English general officer 
than any other Frenchman I ever met. Madame D'Henin 
was like an En2:lishwoman not unaccustomed to courts and 



AT PARIS. 307 

wholly unspoiled by them. Mademoiselle D'Henin, veiy 
pretty, united the qualities of a denizen of the inmost 
circles of the fashionable world with those of a really seri- 
ous student to a degree I have never seen equalled. They 
were great friends of the Bishop of London, and Made- 
moiselle D'Henin used to correspond with him. She was 
earnestly religious, and I remember her telling me of a 
demele she had had with her confessor. She had told him 
in confession that she was in the habit of reading the Eng- 
lish Bible. He strongly objected, and at last told her that 
he could not give her absolution unless she promised to 
discontinue the jDractice. She told him that rather than do 
so she would take what would be to her the painful step of 
declaring herself a Protestant, whereupon he undertook 
to obtain a special permission for her to read the English 
Bible. Whether he did really take any such measures I 
don't know, and I fancy she never knew ; but the upshot 
was that she continued to read the heretical book, and 
nothing more was ever said of refusing her absolution. 

I have a large bundle of letters from this highly accom- 
plished young lady to my mother. Many passages of them 
would be interesting and valuable to an historian of the 
reign of Louis Philippe. She writes at great length, and her 
standpoint is the very centre of the monarchical side of the 
French political world of that day. But as I am not writ- 
ing a history of the reign of Louis Philippe, I must content 
myself with extracting two or three suggestive notices. 

In a letter dated from Paris, 19th July, 1840, she writes : 
"You show much hospitality towards your royal guests. 
But I assure you it will not in this instance be taken as an 
homage to superior merit — words which I have heard fre- 
quently applied here to John Bull's frenzy about Soult, 
and to the hospitality of the English towards the Due de 
N[emours]. When I told him how much I should like to 
be in his place (^. e., about to go to England), he protested 
that he would change places with no one, ' qiiand il s\igis- 
sait (faller dans un aussi delicieux pays^ que cette helle 
Angleteri^e, que vous avez si bonne 7xdson d"* aimer et dhid- 
mirer.^ " 

On the 29th of August in the same year she writes at 



308 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

great length of the indignation and fury produced in 
Paris by the announcement of the Quadruple Alliance. 
She is immensely impressed by the fact that "people 
gathered in the streets and discussed the question in the 
open air." " Ireland, Poland, and Italy are to rise to the 
cry of Liberty." But she goes on to say, "Small causes 
produce great effects. Much of this warlike disposition 
has arisen from the fact of Thiers having bought a mag- 
nificent horse to ride beside the king at the late review." 
She proceeds to ridicule the minister in a tone very natu- 
rally suggested by the personal appearance of the little 
great man under such circumstances, which no doubt fur- 
nished Paris with much fun. But she goes on to suggest 
that the personal vanity which made the prospect of such 
a public appearance alluring to him was. reinforced by " cer- 
tain other secondary but still important considerations of 
a different nature, looking to the results which might fol- 
low from the exhibition of a war policy. This desirable 
end being attained beyond oven the most sanguine hopes, 
the martial fever seems on the decline." 

Now all this gossip may be accepted as evidencing 
the tone prevailing in the very inmost circles of the cit- 
izen king's friends and surroundings, and as such is curi- 
ous. 

Writing on the 8th of October in the same year, after 
speaking at great length of Madame Laffarge, and of the 
extraordinary interest her trial excited, dividing all Paris 
into Laffargists and anti-Laffargists, and almost supersed- 
ino- war as a general topic of conversation, she passes to 
the then burning subject of the fortification of Paris, and 
writes as follows — curiously enough, considering the date 
of her letter : 

"Louis Philippe, whose favorite hobby it has ever been, 
from the idea that it makes him master of Paris, lays the 
first stone to-day. Some people consider it the first stone 
of the mausoleum of his dynasty. I sincerely hope not ; 
for everything that can be called lady or gentleman runs 
a good chance of forming part of the funeral pile. The 
political madness which has taken possession of the pub- 
lic mind is fearful. Foreign or civil war ! Such is the 



AT PARIS. 309 

alternative. Thiers, wlio governs the masses, flatters them 
by promises of war and conquest. The MarselUdse, so 
lately a sign of rebellion, is sung openly in the theatres ; 
the soldiers under arms sing it in chorus. The Guarde 
Nationale urges the king to declare war. He has resisted it 
with all his power, but has now, they say, given way, and 
has given Thiers carte blanche. He is, in fact, entirely un- 
der his controL The Chambers are not consulted. Thiers 
is our absolute sovereign. We call ourselves a free people. 
We have beheaded one monarch, exiled three generations 
of kings merely to have a dictator, ' mal n% tnal fait^ et 
mcil eleve.'' There has been a rumor of a change of min- 
istry, but no one believes it. The overthrow of Thiers 
would be the signal for a revolution, and the fortifications 
are not yet completed to master it. May not all these 
armaments be the precursors of some couiy d'etat? A 
general gloom is over all around us. All the faces are 
long ; all the conversations are sad." 

This may be accepted as a thoroughly accurate and 
trustworthy representation of the then state of feeling 
and opinion among the friends of Louis Philippe's gov- 
ernment, whether Parceque Bourbon or Quoique Bourbon^ 
and as such is valuable. It is curious too, to find a stanch 
friend of the existing government, who may be said to 
have been even intimate with the younger members of 
the royal family, speaking of the prime-minister with the 
detestation Avhich these letters again and again express 
for Thiers. 

In a letter of the 19th November, 1840, the writer de- 
scribes at great length the recent opening of the Chamber 
by the king. She enlarges on the intensity of the anxiety 
felt for the tenor of the king's speech, which was supposed 
to be the announcement of war or peace ; and describes 
the deep emotion with which Louis Philippe, declaring 
his hope that peace might yet be preserved, called upon 
the nation to assist him in the effort to maintain it ; and 
expresses the scorn and loathing with which she over- 
heard one republican deputy say to another as the king 
spoke, ^^Voyez done ce liobert 3Iacaire, comme ilfait sem- 
blant cV avoir du coeurP'' 



310 WHAT I KEMEMBER. 

A letter of the 14th March, 1842, is written in better 
spirits and a lighter tone. Speaking of the prevalent hos- 
tile feeling towards England, the writer wishes that her 
countrymen would remember Lamartine's observation that 
^^ ce patriotis'me coUte pen! II siiffit cVignorei\ cVinjiirier 
et de hair.'''' She tells her correspondent that "if Lord 
Cowley has much to do to establish the exact line between 
Lord Aberdeen's observations and objecUo7is, Lady Cowley 
has no less difficulty in keeping a nice balance between 
dignity and popularity," as "the embassy is besieged by 
all sets and all parties ; the tag and rag, because pushing 
is a part of their nature ; the juste milieu [how the very 
phrase recalls a whole forgotten world !], because they 
consider the English embassy as their property ; the 
noble Faubourg, because they are tired of sulking, and 
would not object to treating Lady Cowley as they treated 
Colonel Thorn,* viz., establishing their quarters at the 
Cowley Arms, as they did at the Thorn's Head, and invit- 
ing their friends on the recognized principle, ' Cest moi 
qui invite, et Monsieur qui paie.'' " 

Then follows an account of a fancy hal monstre at the 
Tuileries, which might have turned out, says the writer, 
to deserve that title in another sense. It was believed 
that a plot had been formed for the assassination of the 
king, at the moment when, according to his invariable 
custom, he took his stand at the door of the supper-room 
to receive the ladies there. Four thousand five hundred 
tickets had been issued, and a certain number of these, still 
blank, had disappeared. That was certain. And it was 
also certain that the king did not go to the door of the 
supper-room as usual. But the writer remarks that the 
tickets may have been stolen by, or for, people who could 
not obtain them legitimately. But the instantly conceived 
suspicion of a plot is illustrative of the conditions of feel- 
ing and opinions in Paris at the time. 

* Colonel Thorn was an American of fabulous wealth, who was for a 
season or two very notorious in Paris. Ho was the hero of the often-told 
story of the two drives to Longchamps the same day ; first with one gor- 
geous equipment of liveries^ and a second time with other and more re- 
splendently clothed retainers. 



AT PARIS. 311 

"For my part," continues Mademoiselle D'Henin, "I 
never enjoyed a ball so much ; perhaps because I did not 
expect to be amused ; perhaps because all the royal fam- 
ily, the Jockey Club, and the fastidious Frenchwomen 
congratulated me upon my toilet, and voted it one of the 
handsomest there. They said the most becoming (but 
that was de Veau benite de cour) ; perhaps it was because 
the dukes of Orleans, Nemours, and Aumale, who never 
dance, and did so very little that evening, all three 
honored me with a quadrille. You see I expose to you 
all the very linings of my heart. I dissect it and exhibit 
all the vanity it contains. But you will excuse me when 
I tell you of a compliment that might have turned a wiser 
head than mine. The fame of my huntress's costume 
[Mademoiselle D'Henin was in those days the very beau 
ideal of a Diana] was such that it reached the ears of the 
wife of our butcher, who sent to beg that I would lend it 
to her to copy, as she was going to a fancy ball !" 

A letter of the 8th of August, 1842, written from Ful- 
ham Palace, contains some interesting notices of the grief 
and desolation caused by the sad death of the Duke of 
Orleans. 

" Was there ever a more afflicting calamity ?" she writes. 
" When last I wrote his name in a letter to you, it was to 
describe him as the admired of all beholders, the hero of 
the/d^e, the pride and honor of France, and now what re- 
mains of him is in his grave ! The affliction of his family 
baffles all description. I receive the most touching ac- 
counts from Paris. Some ladies about the court w^rite to 
me that nothing can equal their grief. As long as the 
coffin remained in the chapel at Neuilly, the members of 
the family were incessantly kneeling by the side of it, 
praying and weeping. The king so far mastered his feel- 
ings that whenever he had official duties to perform he 
was sufficiently composed to perform son metier de roi. 
But when the painful task was done he would rush to the 
chapel and weep over the dead body of his son till the 
whole palace rang with his cries and lamentations. When 
the body was removed from Neuilly to Notre Dame, the 
scene at Neuilly was truly heartrending. My father has 



312 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

seen the king and the princes several times since the catas- 
trophe, and he says it has done the work of years on their 
personal appearance. The Due de Nemours has neither 
eaten nor slept since his brother died, and looks as if walk- 
ing out of his grave. Mamma wrote him a few lines of 
condolence, which he answered by a most affecting note. 
Papa was summoned to attend the king to the House, as 
grand officier, and says he never witnessed such a scene. 
Even the opposition shed their crocodile tears. Placed 
immediately near the king on the steps of the throne, he * 
saw the struggle between kingly decorum and fatherly 
affliction. Nature had the victory. Three times the king 
attempted to speak, three times he was obliged to stop, 
and at last burst into a flood of tears. The contagion 
gained all around him. And it was only interrupted by 
sobs that he could proceed. And it is in the face of this 
despair, when the body of the prince is scarcely cold, that 
that horrid Thiers and his associates begin afresh their 
infernal manoeuvres !" 

A letter of the 'Sd April, 1842, contains among a quan- 
tity of the gossip of the day an odd story, which, the 
writer says, "is putting Rome in a ferment, and the 
clergy in raptures." I thhik I remember that it made a 
considerable stir in ecclesiastic circles at the time. A 
certain M. Ratisbonne, a Jew, it seems entered a church 
in Rome (the writer does not say so, but, if I remember 
rightly, it was the " Gesu ") with a friend, a M. de Bus- 
sieres, who had some business to transact in the sacristy. 
The Jew, who professed complete infidelity, meantime 
was looking at the pictures. But M. de Bussieres, when 
his business was done, found him prostrate on the pave- 
ment in front of a picture of the Madonna. The Jew, on 
coming to himself, declared that the Virgin had stepped 
from her frame and addressed him, with the result, as he 
said, that having fallen to the ground an infidel, he rose a 
convinced Christian ! Mademoiselle D'Henin writes in a 
tone which indicates small belief in the miracle, but seems 
to accept as certain the further facts, that the convert 
gave all he possessed to the Church and became a monk. 

I have recently — even while transcribing these extracts 



AT PARIS. 313 

from her letters — heard of the death, within the last few 
years, of the writer of them. She died in England, I am 
told, and unmarried. Her sympathies and affections were 
always strongly turned to her mother's country, as indeed 
may be in some degree inferred from even those passages 
of her letters which have been given. And I can well 
conceive that the events which, each more disastrous than 
its predecessor, followed in France shortly after the date 
of the last of them, may have rendered, especially after 
the death of her parents, a life in France distasteful to 
her. But I, and, I think, my mother also, had entirely 
lost sight of her for very many years. Had I imagined 
that she was living in England I should undoubtedly have 
endeavored to see her. 

I have known many women, denizens of le grand inonde, 
who have adorned it with equally brilliant talents, equally 
captivating beauty, equally sparkling wit and vivacity of 
intelligence. And I have known many, denizens of the 
studious and the book world, gifted with larger powers of 
intellect, and more richly dowered with the results of 
thought and study. But I do not think that I ever met 
with one who possessed in so large a degree the choice 
product resulting from conversance with both these 
worlds. She was in truth a very brilliant creature. 

Madame D'Henin I remember made us laugh heartily 
one evening by telling us the following anecdote. At one 
of those remarkable omnium- gatherum receptions at the 
Tuileries of which I have spoken in a former chapter, she 
heard an American lady, to whom Louis Philippe was 
talking of his American recollections and of various per- 
sons he had known there, say to him, " Oh, sire, they all 
retain the most lively recollections of your majesty's so- 
journ among them, and icish nothing more than that you 
shoidd return among them again f The Duke of Orleans, 
who was standing behind the king, fairly burst into a guf- 
faw. 

There was a story current in Rome, in the days of Pius 

the Ninth, which may be coupled with this as a good^^e??- 

dant. His holiness, when he had occupied the papal throne 

for a period considerably exceeding the legendary twenty- 

14 



314 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

five years of St. Peter, was one day very affably asking an 
Englishman, who had been presented to him, whether he 
had seen everything in Rome most calculated to interest 
a stranger, and was answered : " Yes indeed, your holiness, 
I think almost everything, except one which I confess I 
have been particularly anxious to witness — a conclave !" 

Here are a few jottings at random from my diary, 
which may still have some little interest : 

" Madame Le Roi, a daughter of General Hoche, told 
me (22d January, 1840) that as she was driving on the 
boulevard a day or two ago, a sou piece was thrown with 
great violence at the window of her carriage, smashing it 
to pieces. This, she said, was because her family arms 
were emblazoned on the panel. Most of the carriages in 
Paris, she said, had no arms on them for fear of similar 
attacks." 

Then we were active frequenters of the theatres. We 
go, I find, to the Fran9ais, to see Mars, then sixty years 
old, in *'Les Dehors Trompeurs" and in the " Fausses 
Confidences;" to the opera to hear "Robert le Diable" 
and " Lucia di Lammermuir," with Persiani, Taraburini, 
and Rubini ; and the followhig night to the Fran9ais 
again, to see Rachel in '* Cinna." 

I thought her personally, I observe, very attractive. 
But that, and sundry other subsequent experiences, left 
me with the impression that she was truly very powerful 
in the representation of scorn, indignation, hatred, and 
all the sterner and less amiable passions of the soul, but 
failed painfully when her role required the exhibition of 
tenderness or any of the gentler emotions. These were 
my impressions when she was young and 1 was compara- 
tively so. But when, many years afterwards, I saw her 
repeatedly in Italy, they were not, I think, much modified. 

The frequent occasions on which, subsequently, I saw 
Ristori produced an impression on me very much the re- 
verse. I remember thinking Ristori's " Mirra " too good, 
so terribly true as to be almost too painful for the thea- 
tre. I thought Rachel's " Marie Stuart," upon the whole, 
her finest performance, though " Adrienne" ran it hard. 

Persiani, I note, supported by Lablache and Rubini, had 



AT PARIS. 315 

a most triumphant reception in " Inez de Castro," while 
Albertazzi was very coldly received in " Blanche de Cas- 
tille." Grisi in "Norma" was "superb." "Persiani and 
P. Garcia sang a duet from ' Tancredi ;' it was divine ! I 
think I like Garcia's voice better than any of them. Nor 
could I thhik her ugly, as it is the fashion to call her, 
though it must be admitted that her mouth and teeth are 
alarming." 

Then there were brilliant receptions at the English 
embassy (Lord Granville) and at the Austrian embassy 
(Comte d'Appony). My diary remarks that stars and 
gold lace and ribbons of all the orders in Christendom 
were more abundant at the latter, but female beauty at 
the former. I remember much admiring that of Lady 
Honoria Cadogan, and that of a very remarkably lovely 
Visconti girl, a younger sister of the Princess Belgiojoso. 
But despite this perfect beauty, my diary notes that it 
was " curious to observe the unmistakable superiority as 
a human being of the young English patrician." I re- 
member that the "sit-down" suppers at the Austrian em- 
bassy — a separate little table for every two, three, or four 
guests — were remarked on as a novelty (and applauded) 
by the Parisians. 

Then at Miss Clarke's (afterwards Madame Mohl) I 
find Fauriel, "the first Proven9al scholar in Europe," de- 
lightful, and am disgusted with Merimee, because he man- 
ifested self-sufficiency, as it seemed to my youthful criti- 
cism, by pooh-poohing the probability of the temple at 
Lanleff in Brittany having been aught else than a church 
of the Templars. 

Then Arago reads an Eloge on " old Ampere," of 
which I only remark that it lasted two hours and a half. 
Then there was a dinner at Dr. Gilchrist's, whose widow 
our old friend Pepe, who for many years had always 
called her "Madame Ghee-cree," subsequently married. 
My notes, written the same evening, remind me that " I 
did not much like the radical old doctor (his wife was an 
old acquaintance, but I had never seen him before) ; he is 
eighty, and ought to know better. Old Nymzevitch (I 
am not sure of the spelling), the ex-Chancellor of Poland, 



316 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

dined with us. He is eighty-four. When he said that he 
had conversed with the Due de Richelieu, I started as if 
he had announced himself as the Wandering Jew. But, 
in fact, he had had, when a young man, an interview with 
the due, then ninety. He was, Nymzevitch told me, dread- 
fully emaciated, but dressed very splendidly in a purple 
coat all bedizened with silver lace. ' He received me,' said 
the old ex-chancellor, * with much affable dignity.' " 

Then comes a breakfast with Pepe, at which I met the 
President Thibeaudeau, "a gray old man who makes a 
point of saying rude, coarse, and disagreeable thiflgs, 
which his friends call dry humor. He found fault with 
everything at the breakfast-table." 

Then a visit to the Chamber (where I heard Soult, Du- 
pin, and Teste speak, and thought it " a terrible bear-gar- 
den ") is followed by attendance at a sermon by Athanase 
Coquerel, the Protestant preacher whose reputation in the 
Parisian beau monde was great in those days. He was, 
says my diary, " exceedingly eloquent, but I did not like 
his sermon ;" for which dislike my notes proceed to give 
the reasons, which I spare the, I hope grateful, reader. 
Then I went to hear Bishop Luscombe at the ambassador's 
chapel, and listened to "a very stupid sermon." I seem, 
somewhat to my surprise as I read the records of it, to have 
had a pronounced taste for sermons in those days, which 
I fear I have somewhat outgrown. But, then, I have been 
very deaf during my later decades. 

Bishop Luscombe may perhaps, however, be made more 
amusing to the reader than he was to me in the embassy 
chapel by the following fragment of his experience. The 
bishop arrived one day at Paddington, and could not find 
his luggage. He called a porter to find it for him, telling 
him the name to be read on the articles. The man, very 
busy with other people, answered hurriedly, "You must 
go to hell for your luggage." Now Luscombe, who was 
a somewhat pompous and very hishopy man, was dread- 
fully shocked, and felt, as he said, as if the porter had 
struck him in the face. In extreme indignation he de- 
manded where he could speak with any of the authorities, 
and was told that *'the board" was then sitting up-stairs. 



AT PARIS. 31 Y 

So to the boardroom the bishop went straightway, and, 
announcing himself, made his complaint. The chairman, 
professing his regret that such offence should have been 
given, said he feared the man must have been drunk, but 
that he should be immediately summoned to give an ac- 
count of his conduct. So the porter, in great trepidation, 
appeared in a few minutes before the august tribunal of 
" the board." 

"Well, sir," said he, in reply to the chairman's indig- 
nant questioning, " what could I do ? I was werry busy 
at the time. So when the gentleman says as his name 
was Luscombe, I could do no better than tell him to go to 
h'ell for his luggage, and he'd have found it there all 
right !" 

"Oh ! I see," said the chairman; "it is a case of mis- 
placed aspirate ! We have spaces on the wall marked 
with the letters of the alphabet, and you would have found 
your luggage at the letter L. You will see that the man 
meant no offence. I am sorry you should have been so 
scandalized, but though we succeed, I hope, in making our 
porters civil to our customers, it would be hopeless, I fear, 
to attempt to make them say L correctly." Sohimtur risit 
tahulce. 

I find chronicled a long talk with Mohl one evening at 
Madame Recamier's. The room was very full of notable 
people of all sorts, and the tide of chattering was running 
very strong. " How can anything last long in France ?" 
said he, in reply to my having said (in answer to his as- 
sertion that Cousin's philosophy had gone by) that it had 
been somewhat short-lived. " Reputations are made and 
pass away. It is impossible that they should endure. It 
is in such places as this that they are destroyed. The 
friction is prodigious !" 

We then began to talk of the state of religion in France. 
He said that among a large set religion was now d la 
mode. But he did not suppose that many of the fine folks 
who patronized it had much belief in it. The clergy of 
France were, he said, almost invariably very illiterate. 
Guizot, I remembered, calls them, in his "History of Civ- 
ilization," doctes et erudits^ but I abstained from quoting 



318 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

him. Molil went on to tell me a story of a newspaper 
that had been about to be established, called Le Democrat. 
The shareholders met, when it appeared that one party 
wished to make it a Roman Catholic and the other an 
atheist organ. Whereupon the existence of God was put 
to the vote and carried by a majority of one, at which 
the atheist party were so disgusted that they seceded in 
a body. 

I got to like Mohl much, and had more conversation, I 
think, with him than with any other of the numerous men 
of note with whom I became more or less acquainted. On 
another occasion, when I found him in his cabinet, walled 
up as usual among his books, our talk fell on his great 
work, the edition of the Oriental MSS. in the " Biblio- 
theque Royale," v»^hich was to be completed in ten folio 
volumes, the first of which, just out, he was showing me. 
He complained of the extreme slowness of the govern- 
ment presses in getting on with the work. This he at- 
tributed to the absurd costliness, as he considered it, of 
the style in which the work was brought out. The cost 
of producing that first volume, he told me, had been over 
£1600 sterling. It was to be sold at a little less than a 
hundred francs. Something was said (by me, I think) of 
the possibility of obtaining assistance from the king, who 
was generally supposed to be immensely wealthy. Mohl 
said that he did not believe Louis Philippe to be nearly 
so rich a man as he was supposed to be. He had spent, 
he said, enormous sums on the chateaux he had restored, 
and was afiirmed, by those who had the means of know- 
ing the fact, to be at that time twelve millions of francs 
in debt. 

My liking for Mohl seems to have been fully justified 
by the estimation he was generally held in. I find in a 
recently published volume by Kathleen O'Meara, on the 
life of my old friend, Miss Clarke, who afterwards became 
his wife, the following passage quoted from Sainte-Beuve, 
who describes him as " a man who was the very embodi- 
ment of learning and of inquiry, an Oriental savant — more 
than a savant — a sage, with a mind clear, loyal, and vast ; 
a German mind passed through an English filter, a cloud- 



AT PARIS. 319 

less, unruffled mirror, open and limpid; of pure and frank 
morality; early disenchanted with all things ; with a grain 
of irony devoid of all bitterness, the laugh of a child un- 
der a bald head ; a Goethe-like intelligence, but free from 
all prejudice." "A charming and spirituelle Frenchwom- 
an," Miss O'Meara goes on to say, " said of Julius Mohl 
that Nature, in forming his character, had skimmed the 
cream of the three nationalities to which he belonged by 
birth, by adoption, and by marriage, making him deep as 
a German, spirituel as a Frenchman, and loyal as an Eng- 
lishman." 

I may insert here the following short note from Madame 
Mohl, because the manner of it is very characteristic of 
her. It is, as was usual with her, undated. 

" My dear Mr. Troli.ope, — By accident I have just learned that you are 
in London. If I could see you and talk over my dear old friend (Madame 
Recamier) I should bo so much obliged and so glad, I live 68 Oxford 
Terrace, Hyde Park. If you would write me a note to say when I should 
be at home for the purpose. But if you can't, I am generally, not always, 
found after four. But if you could come on the 10th or r2th after nine 
we have a party. I am living at Mrs. Schwabe's just now till 16th this 
month. Pray write me a note, even if you can't come. 

" Yours ever, " Mary Moiil." 

All the capital letters in the above transcript, except 
those in her name, are mine ; she uses none. The note is 
written in headlong hurry. 

Mignet, whom I met at the house of Thiers, I liked too, 
but Mohl was my favorite. 

It was all very amusing, with as much excitement and 
interest of all kinds crammed into a few weeks as might 
have lasted one for a twelvemonth. And I liked it better 
than teaching Latin to the youth of Birmingham. But it 
would seem that there was something that I liked better 
still. For on March 30, leaving my mother in the full 
swing of the Parisian gayeties, I bade adieu to them all 
and once again " took to the road," bound on an excursion 
through central France. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

IN WESTERN FRANCE. AGAIN IN PARIS. 

My journey through central France took me by Char- 
tres, Orleans, down the Lcire to Nantes, then through La 
Vendee to Fontenay, Niort, Poitiers, Saintes, Rochefort, 
La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Angouleme, Limoges, and thence 
back to Paris. On looking at the book for the first time 
since I read the proof-sheets I find it amusing. The fault 
of it, as an account of the district traversed, is that it 
treats of the localities described on a scale that Avould 
have needed twenty volumes, instead of two, to complete 
the story of my tour in the same proportion. I do not 
remember that any of my critics noted this fault. Per- 
haps they feared that on the first suggestion of such an 
idea I should have set about mending the difficulty by the 
production of a score of other volumes on the subject ! I 
could easily have done so. I was in no danger of incur- 
ring the anathema launched by Sterne — I think it was 
Sterne — against the man who went from Dan to Beersheba 
and found all barren. I found matter of interest every- 
where, and could have gone on doing so, as it seemed to 
me in those days, forever. 

The part of France I visited is not much betravelled by 
Englishmen, and the general idea is that it is not an inter- 
esting section of the country. I thought, and still think, 
otherwise. My notion is that if a line were drawn through 
France from Calais to the centre of the Pyrenean chain, 
by far the greater part of the prettiest country and most 
interesting populations, as well as places, would be found 
to the westward of it. I do not think that my bill of fare 
excited any great interest in the reading world ; but I sup- 
pose that I contrived to interest a portion of it, for the 
book was fairly successful. 

I wrote a book in many respects of the same kind many 



IN WESTERN FRANCE. 321 

years subsequently, giving an account of a journey through 
certain little-visited districts of central Italy, under the 
title of a " Lenten Journey." It is not, I think, so good 
a book as my French journeys furnished, mainly, to my 
mind, because it was in one small volume instead of two 
big ones, and both for want of space and want of time 
was done hurriedly and too compendiously. The true 
motto for the writer of such a book is 7iihil a me alienum 
2mto, whether humanum or otherwise. My own opinion 
is, to make a perfectly clean breast of it, that I could now 
write a fairly amusing book on a journey from Tyburn 
turnpike to Stoke Pogis. But then such books should be 
addressed to readers who are not in such a tearing hurry as 
the unhappy world is in these latter days. 

It would seem that I found my two octavo volumes did 
not afford me nearly enough space to say my say respect- 
ing the country traversed, for they are brought to an end 
somewhat abruptly by a hurried return from Limoges to 
Paris ; whereas my ramble was much more extended, in- 
cluding both the upper and lower provinces of Auvergne 
and the whole of the Bourbonnais. My voluminous notes 
of the whole of these wanderings are now before me. But 
I will let my readers off easy, recording only that I walked 
from Murat to St. Flour, a distance of fifteen miles, in five 
minutes under three hours. Not bad! My diary notes 
that it was frequently very difficult to find my way in 
walking about Auvergne, from the paucity of people I 
could find who could speak French, the kmgue du pays 
being as unintelligible as Choctaw. This would hardly 
be the case now. 

I don't know whether a knot of leading tradesmen at 
Bordeaux could now be found to talk as did such a party 
with whom I got into conversation in that year, 1840. It 
was explained to me that England, as was well known, 
had liberated her slaves in the West Indies perfectly well 
knowing that the colonies would be absolutely ruined by 
the measure, but expecting to be amply compensated by 
the ruin of the French colonies, which would result from 
the example, and the consequent extension of trade with 
the East Indies, from which France would be compelled 
14* 



322 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

to purchase all the articles her own colonies now supplied 
her with. One of these individuals told me and the rest 
of his audience that he had the means of knowing that 
the interest of the English national debt was paid every 
year by fresh borrowing, and that bankruptcy and abso- 
lute smash must occur within a few years. '' Ah !" said 
a much older, gray-headed man, who had been listening 
sitting with his hands reposing on his walking-stick before- 
him, and who spoke with a sort of patient, long-expecting 
hope and a deep sigh — '* ah ! we have been looking for that 
many a year, but I am beginning to doubt whether I shall 
live to see it." My assurances that matters were not alto- 
gether so bad as they supposed in England, of course, met 
with little credence. Still, they listened to me, and did 
not show angry signs of a consciousness that I was auda- 
ciously befooling them, till the talk having veered to Lon- 
don, I ventured to assure them that London was not sur- 
rounded by any octroi boundary, and that no impost of that 
nature was levied there.* Then, in truth, I might as well 
have assured them that London streets were literally paved 
with gold. 

On the 30th of May, 1840, I returned with my mother 
from Paris to her house in York Street. Life had been 
very pleasant there to her I believe, and certainly to me 
during those periods of it which my inborn love of ram- 
bling allowed me to pass there. But in the following 
June it was determined that the house in York Street 
should be given up. Probably the causa causans of this 
determination was the fact of my sister's removal to far 
Penrith. But I think, too, that there was a certain un- 
avowed feeling that we had eaten up London, and should 
enjoy a move to new pastures. 

I remember well a certain morning in York Street when 
we — my mother and I — held a solemn audit of accounts. 
It was found that during her residence in York Street she 
had spent a good deal more than she had supposed. She 
had entertained a good deal, giving frequent "little din- 

* It may possibly be necessary to tell untravelled Englishmen that the 
octroi, universal on the Continent, is an impost levied on all articles of 
consumption at the gates of a town. 



AGAIN IN PARIS. 323 

ners." But dinners, however little, are apt in London to 
leave tradesmen's bills not altogether small in proportion 
to their littleness. "The fact is," said my mother, "that 
potatoes have been quite exceptionally dear." For a very 
long series of years she never heard the last of those ex- 
ceptional potatoes. But, despite the alarming deficit caused 
by those unfortunate vegetables, I do not think the aban- 
donment of the establishment in York Street v/as caused 
by financial considerations. She was earning in those 
years large sums of money — quite as large as any she had 
been spending — and might have continued in London had 
she been so minded. 

No doubt I had much to do with the determination we 
came to. But, for my part, if it had at that time been 
proposed to me that our establishment should be reduced 
to a couple of trunks, and all our worldly possessions to 
the contents of them, with an opening vista of carriages, 
diligences, and ships ad llbitmn in prospect, I should have 
jumped at the idea. A caravan, which, in addition to 
shirts and stockings, could have carried about one's books 
and writing-tackle, would have seemed the summiim ho- 
nuin of human felicity. 

So we turned our backs on London without a thought 
of regret and once again " took the road ;" but this time 
separately, my mother going to my sister at Penrith and 
I to pass the summer months in wanderings in Picardy, 
Lorraine, and French Flanders, and the ensuing winter m 
Paris. 

I hardly know which was the pleasanter time. By this 
time I was no stranger to Paris, and had many friends 
there. It was my first experiment of living there as a 
bachelor, as I was going to say, but I mean "on my own 
hook," and left altogether to my own devices. I found, 
of course, that my then experiences diflfered considerably 
from those acquired when living en famille. But I am 
disposed to think that the tolerably intimate knowledge 
I flatter myself I possessed of the Paris and Parisians of 
Louis Philippe's time was mainly the result of this second 
residence. I remember, among a host of things indicating 



324 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

the extent of the difference between those days and these, 
that I lived in a very good apartment, mt troisihme, in one 
of the streets immediately behind the best part of the Rue 
de Rivoli for one hundred francs a month ! This price 
included all service (save, of course, a tip to the porter), 
and the preparation of my coffee for breakfast if I needed 
it. For dinner, or any other meal, I had to go out. 

" Society " lived in Paris in those days — not unreason- 
ably as the result soon showed — in perpetual fear of being 
knocked all to pieces by an outbreak of revolution, though, 
of course, nobody said so. But I lived mainly (though 
not entirely) among the hien pensants people, who looked 
on all anti - governmental manifestations with horror. 
Perhaps the restless discontent which destroyed Louis 
Philippe's government is the most disheartening circum- 
stance in the whole course of recent French history. That 
the rule of Charles Dix should have occasioned revolt may 
be regrettable, but is not a matter for surprise. But that 
of Louis Philippe was not a stagnant or retrogressive re,- 
gime. '"'■La carrUre''^ was very undeniably open to talent 
and merit of every description. Material well-being was 
on the increase. And the door was not shut against any 
political change which even very advanced Liberalism, of 
the kind consistent with order, might have aspired to. 
But the Liberalism which moved France was not of that 
kind. 

One of my most charming friends of those days, Rosa 
Stewart, who afterwards became and was well known to 
literature as Madame Blaze du Bury, was both too clever 
and too shrewd an observer, as well as, to me at least, too 
frank to pretend any of the assurance which was then de 
mode. She saw what was coming, and was fully per- 
suaded that it must come. I hope that her eye may rest 
on this testimony to her perspicacity, though I know not 
whether she still graces this planet with her very pleasing 
presence. For as, alas ! in so many scores of other in- 
stances, our lives have drifted apart, and it is many years 
since I have heard of her. 

One excursion I specially remember in connection with 
that autumn was partly, I think, a pedestrian one, to Ami- 



AGAIN IN PARIS. 325 
ens and Beauvais, made in company with the W 



A of whom my brother speaks in his autobiography ; 

which I mention chiefly for the sake of recording my tes- 
timony to the exactitude of his description of that very 
singular individual. If it had not been for the continual 
carefulness necessitated by the difficulty of avoiding all 
cause of quarrel,! should say that he was about the pleas- 
antest travelling companion I have ever known. 

In the beginning of April, 1841, after a little episode of 
spring wandering in the Tyrol and Bavaria (in the course 
of which I met my mother at the chateau of her very old 
friend the Baroness de Zandt, who has been mentioned 
before, and was now living somewhat solitarily in her huge 
house in its huge park near Bamberg), my mother and I 
started for Italy. Neither of us had at that time con- 
ceived the idea of making a home there. The object of 
the journey, which had been long contemplated by my 
mother, was the writing of a book on Italy, as she had al- 
ready done on Paris and on Vienna. 

Our journey was a prosperous one in all respects, and 
our flying visit to Italy was very pleasant. My mothers 
book was duly written, and published by Mr. Bentley in 
1842. But the "Visit to Italy," as the work was entitled 
(with justly less pretence than the titles of either of its 
predecessors had put forward, was in truth all too short. 
And I find that almost all of the huge mass of varied rec- 
ollections which are connected in my mind with Italy and 
Italian people and things belong to my second " visit " of 
nearly half a century's duration ! 

We made, however, several pleasant acquaintances and 
some fast friends, principally at Florence, and thus paved 
the way, although little intending it at the time, for our 
return thither. 

Our visit was rendered shorter than it would proba- 
bly otherwise have been by my mother's strong desire to 
be with my sister, who was expecting the birth of her first 
child at Penrith. And for this purpose we left Rome in 
February, 1842, in very severe weather. We crossed the 
Mont Cenis in sledges — which to me was a very accepta- 
ble experience, but to my mother was one which nothing 



326 WHAT I KEMEMBER. 

could have induced her to face, save the determination 
not to fail her child at her need. 

Plow vrell I remember hearing, as I sat in the hcmquette 
of the diligence which was just leaving Susa for its climb 
up the mountain amid the snow, then rapidly falling, the 
driver of the descending diligence, which had accom- 
plished its work and was just about entering the haven of 
Susa, sing out to our driver — ^'Voiis allezvous amiiser joli- 
ment Id haut, croyez moir 

We did not, however, change the diligence for the 
sledges till we came to the descent on the northern side. 
But as we made our slow way to the top our vehicle was 
supported from time to time on either side by twelve 
strapping fellows, who put their shoulders to it. 

I appreciated during that journey, though I was glad to 
see the mountain in its winter dress, the recommendation 
not to let your flight be in the winter. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

IN lEELAND. — AT ILFKACOMBE. IN FLOEENCE. 

I ACCOMPANIED my mother to Penrith, and forthwith de- 
voted myself heart and body to the preparation of our 
new house, and the beautifying of the very pretty paddock 
in which it was situated. I put in some hundreds of trees 
and shrubs with my own hands, which prospered marvel- 
lously, and have become, I have been told, most luxuriant 
shrubberies. I was bent on building a cloistered walk along 
the entire top of the field, which would have afforded a 
charming ambulatory sheltered from the north winds and 
from the rain, and would have commanded the most love- 
ly views, while the pillars supporting the roof would have 
presented admirable places for a world of flowering climb- 
ing plants. And doubtless I should have achieved it, had 
we remained there. But it would have run into too much 
money to be undertaken immediately — fortunately ; for, 
inasmuch as there was nothing of the sort in all that coun- 
try-side, no human being would have given a stiver more 
for the house when it came to be sold, and the next owner 
would probably have pulled it down. There was no au- 
thority for such a thing. Had it been suffered to remain 
it would probably have been called " Trollope's Folly !" 

Subsequently, but not immediately after we left it, the 
place — oddly enough I forget the name we gave it — be- 
came the property and the residence of my brother-in- 
law. 

Of my life at Penrith I need add nothing to the jot- 
tings I have already placed before the reader on the occa- 
sion of my first visit to that j^lace. 

My brother, already a very different man from what he 
had been in London, came from his Irish district to visit 
us there ; and I returned with him to Ireland, to his head- 
quarters at Banagher on the Shannon. Neither of this 



328 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

journey need I say much. For to all who know anything 
of Ireland at the present day — and who does not? worse 
luck ! — anything I might write would seem as 7nhil ad 
rem as if I were w^'iting of an island in the Pacific. I re- 
member a very vivid impression that occurred to me on 
first landing at Kingstown, and accompanied me during 
the whole of my stay in the island, to the effect that the 
striking differences in everything that fell under my ob- 
servation from what I had left behind me at Holyhead 
were fully as great as any that had excited my interest 
when first landing in France. 

One of my first visits was to my brother's chief. He 
was a master of foxhounds and hunted the country. And 
I well remember my astonishment when the door of this 
gentleman's residence was opened to me by an extremely 
dirty and slatternly bare-footed and bare-legged girl. I 
found him to be a very friendly and hospitable good fel- 
low, and his wife and her sister very pleasant women. I 
found too that my brother stood high in his good graces 
by virtue of simply having taken the whole work and 
affairs of the postal district on his shoulders. The re- 
jected of St. Martin's-le-Grand was already a very valua- 
ble and capable ofiicer. 

My brother gave me the choice of a run to the Killeries 
or to Killarney. We could not manage both. I chose 
the former, and a most enjoyable trip we had. He could 
not leave his w^ork to go with me, but was to join me sub- 
sequently, I forget where, in the west. Meantime he gave 
me a letter to a bachelor friend of his at Clifden. This 
gentleman immediately asked me to dinner, and he and I 
dined tete-d-tete. Nevertheless, he thought it necessary to 
apologize for the appearance of a very fine John Dory on 
the table, saying that he had been himself to the market 
to get a turbot for me, but that he had been asked half a 
crown for a not very large one, and really he could not 
give such absurd prices as that ! 

Anthony duly joined me as proposed, and we had a 
grand walk over the mountains above the Killeries. I 
don't forget, and never shall forget — nor did Anthony 
ever forget ; alas ! that we shall never more talk over 



IN IRELAND. 329 

that day again — the truly grand spectacular changes from 
dark, thick, enveloping cloud to brilliant sunshine, sud- 
denly revealing all the mountains and the wonderful color- 
ing of the intertwining sea beneath them, and then back to 
cloud and mist and drifting sleet again. It was a glorious 
walk. We returned wet to the skin to Joyce's Inn, and 
dined on roast goose and whiskey punch, wrapped in our 
blankets like Roman senators ! 

One other scene I must recall. The reader will hardly 
believe that it occurred in Ireland. There was an election 
of a member for I forget what county or borough, and my 
brother and I went to the hustings — the only time I ever was 
at an election in her majesty's dominions. What were the 
party feelings, or the party colors, I utterly forget. It 
was merely for the fun of the thing that we went there. 
The fun, indeed, was fast and furious. The whole scene 
on the hustings, as well as around them, seemed to me 
one seething mass of senseless but good-humored hustling 
and confusion. Suddenly in the midst of the uproar an 
ominous cracking v.as heard, and in the next minute the 
hustings swayed and came down with a crash, heaping 
together in a confused mass all the two or three hundreds 
of human beings who were on the huge platform. Some 
few were badly hurt. But my brother and I being young 
and active, and tolerably stout fellows, soon extricated 
ourselves, regained our legs, and found that we were none 
the worse. Then we began to look to our neighbors. 
And the first who came to hand was a priest, a little man, 
who was lying with two or three fellows on the top of 
him, horribly frightened and roaring piteously for help. 
So Anthony took hold of one of his arms and I of the oth- 
er, and by main force dragged him from under the super- 
incumbent mass of humanity. When we got him on his 
legs his gratitude was unbounded. " Tell me your names," 
he shouted, " that I'll pray for ye !" We told him laugh- 
ingly that we were afraid it was no use, for we were 
heretics. "Tell me your names," he shouted again, "that 
I'll pray for ye all the more !" 

I wonder whether he ever did. He certainly was very 
much in earnest while the fright was on him. 



330 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

Not very long after my return from this Irish trip we 
finally left Penrith, on the thircf of April, 1843 ; and I 
trust that the nymph of the holy well, whose spring we 
had disturbed, was appeased. 

My mother and I had now " the world before us where 
to choose." She had work in hand, and more in perspec- 
tive, but it was work of a nature that might be done in 
one place as well as in another. So when " Carlton Hill " 
(all of a sudden the name comes back to my memory) 
was sold, we literally stood with no impedimenta of any 
sort save our trunks, and absolutely free to turn our faces 
in whatsoever direction we pleased. 

What we did in the first instance was to turn them to 
the house of our old and well-beloved cousin, Fanny Bent, 
at Exeter. There after a few days we persuaded her to 
accompany us to Ilfracombe, where we spent some very 
enjoyable summer weeks. What 1 remember chiefly in 
connection with that pleasant time was idling rambles 
over the rocks and the Capstone Hill, in company with 
Mrs. Coker and her sister Miss Aubrey, the daughters of 

that Major A who needs to the whist-playing world 

no further commemoration. The former of them was the 
wife and mother of Wykehamists (founder's kin), and both 
were very charming women. Ilfracombe Avas in those 
days an unpretending sort of fishing-village. There was 
no huge Ilfracombe Hotel, and the Capstone Hill was not 
strewed with whitey-brown biscuit bags and the fragments 
of bottles, nor continually vocal with nigger minstrels and 
ranting preachers. The Royal Clarence did exist in the 
little town, whether under that name or not, I forget. 
But I can testify from experience, acquired some forty 
years afterwards, that Mr. and Mrs. Clemow now keep 
there one of the best inns of its class that I, no incom- 
petent expert in such matters, know in all England. 

Then, when the autumn days began to draw in, we re- 
turned to Exeter, and many a long consultation was held 
by my mother and I, sallying forth from Fanny Bent's 
hosijitable house for a tete-d-tete stroll on Northernhay, on 
the question of " What next ?" 

It turned out to be a more momentous question than 



AT ILFRACOMBE. 33 1 

we either of us imagined it to be at the time ; for the 
decision of it involved the shape and form of the entire 
future life of one of us, and still more important modifica- 
tion of the future life of the other. Dresden was talked 
of. Rome was considered. Paris was thought of. Venice 
was discussed. No one of them was proposed as a future 
permanent home. Finally Florence came on the tajns. 
We had liked it much, and had formed some much-valued 
friendships there. It was supposed to be economical as a 
place to live in, which was one main point. For our plan 
was to make for ourselves for two or three years a home 
and way of living sufficiently cheap to admit of combin- 
ing with it large plans of summer travel. And eventu- 
ally Florence was fixed on. 

As for my mother, it turned out that she was then se- 
lecting her last and final home — though the end was not, 
thank God, for many a long year yet. As for me, the 
decision arrived at during those walks on Exeter Northern- 
hay was more momentous still. For I was choosing the 
road that led not only to my home for the next half-cen- 
tury nearly, but to two marriages, both of them so happy 
in all respects as rarely to have fallen to the lot of one and 
the same man. 

How little we either of us, my mother and I, saw into 
the future — beyond a few immediate inches before our 
noses ! Truly prudens fiituri temporis exitiim caliginosd 
7iocte premit Deus! And when I hear talk of "conduct 
making fate," I often think — humbly and gratefully, I 
trust; marvelling, certainly — how far it could liave d 
priori seemed probable that the conduct of a man who, 
without either ces in presenti^ or any very visible prospect 
of ms in futuro^ turns aside from all the beaten paths of 
professional industry should have led him to a long life 
of happiness and content, hardly to be surpassed, and, I 
should fear, rarely equalled. Dens nobis hcec otia fecit! 
— Deus, by the intromission of one rarely good mother, 
and two rarely good, and I may add rarely gifted, wives ! 

Not that I would have the reader translate " otia " by 
idleness. I have written enough to show that my life 
hitherto had been a full and active one. And it continued 



332 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

in Italy to be an industrious one. Translate the word 
rather into "independence." For I worked at work that 
I liked, and did no task-work. Nevertheless, I would not 
wish to be an evil exemplar, vitlis irnitahile, and I don't 
recommend you, dear boys, to do as I did. I have been 
quite abnormally fortunate. 

Well, we thought that we were casting the die of fate 
on a very subordinate matter, while, lo ! it was cast for 
us by the Supernal Powers after a more far-reaching and 
overruling fashion. 

So on the 2d of September, 1843, we turned our faces 
southward and left London for Florence. 

We became immediately on arriving in Firenze la gen- 
tile (after a little tour in Savoy, introduced as an interlude 
after our locomotive rambling fashion) the guests of Lady 
Bulwer, who then inhabited in the Palazzo Passerini an 
apartment far larger than she needed, till we could find a 
lodging for ourselves. 

We had become acquainted with Lady Bulwer in Paris, 
and a considerable intimacy arose between her and my 
mother, whose nature was especially calculated to sym- 
pathize with the good qualities which Lady Bulwer un- 
questionably possessed in a high degree. She was brill- 
iant, witty, generous, kind, joyous, good-natured, and very 
handsome. But she was wholly governed by impulse and 
unreasoning prejudice ; though good-natured, was not al- 
ways good-humored ; was totally devoid of prudence or 
judgment, and absolutely incapable of estimating men 
aright. She used to think me, for instance, little short of 
an admirable Crichton ! 

Of course, all the above-rehearsed good qualities were, 
or were calculated to be, immediately perceived and ap- 
preciated, while the less pleasant specialties which accom- 
panied them were of a kind to become more perceptible 
only in close intimacy. And while no intimacy ever les- 
sened that regard of my mother and myself that had been 
won by the first, it was not long before we were both, my 
mother especially, vexed by exhibitions of the second. 

As, for instance : Lady Bulwer had for some days been 
complaining of feeling unwell, and was evidently suffer- 



IN FLORENCE. 333 

ing. My mother urged her to have some medical advice, 
whereupon she turned on her very angrily, while the tears 
started to her beautiful eyes, and said, " How caii you tell 
me to do any such thing, when you know that I have not 
a guinea for the purpose ?" (She was frequently wont to 
complain of her poverty.) But she had hardly got the 
words out of her mouth when the servant entered the 
room saying that the silversmith was at the door asking 
that the account which he laid on the table might be paid. 
The account (which Lady Bulwer made no attempt to con- 
ceal, for concealment of anything Avas not at all in her 
line) was for a pair of small silver spurs and an orna- 
mented silver collar which she had ordered a week or two 
previously for the ceremonial knighting of her little dog 
Taffy! 

On another occasion a large party of us were to visit 
the Boboli Gardens. It was a very hot day, and we had 
to climb the hill to the upper part of the gardens, from 
whence the view over Florence and the Val d'Arno is a 
charming one. But the hill, as those who have been at 
Florence will not have forgotten, is not only an extremely 
steep, but a shadeless one. The broad path runs between 
two wide margins of turf, which are enclosed on either 
side by thick but not very high shrubberies. The party 
sorted themselves into couples, and the men addressed 
themselves to facilitating as best they might the not slight- 
ly fatiguing work before the ladies. It fell to my lot to 
give Lady Bulwer my arm. Before long we were the last 
and most lagging couple on the path. It Avas hard work, 
but I did my best, and flattered myself that my companion, 
despite the radical moisture which she was copiously los- 
ing, was in high good-humor, as indeed she seemed to be, 
when suddenly, without a word of warning, she dashed 
from the path, thrcAV herself prone among the bushes, and 
burst into an uncontrollable fit of sobs and weeping. I 
was horrified with amazement. What had I done, or what 
left undone ? It was long before I could get a word out 
of her. At last she articulated amid her sobs, '' It is too 
hot ! It is cruel to bring one here !" Yes, it was too hot ; 
but that was all. Fortunately I was not the cruel bringer. 



334 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

I consoled her to the best of my power, and induced her 
to wipe her eyes. I dabbled a handkerchief in a neigh- 
boring fountain for her to wash her streaked face, and 
eventually I got her to the top of the hill, where all the 
others had long since arrived. 

The incident was entirely characteristic of her. She 
was furiously angry with all things in heaven above and 
on the earth below because she was at the moment incon- 
venienced. 

Here is the beginning of a letter from her of a date 
some months anterior to the Boboli adventure : 

" lUustrissimo Signor Tommaso" (that was the usual 
style of her address to me), "as your book is just out you 
must feel quite eoi train for puffs of any description. 
Therefore I send you the best I have seen for a long while, 
'La Physiologic du Fumeur.' But even if you don't like 
it, doriH put it in your pipe and smoke it. Vide Joseph 
Fume." 

A little subsequently she Avrites : " Signor Tommaso, 
the only revenge I shall take for your lecture " (probably 
on the matter of some outrageous extravagance) " is not 
to call you illustrissimo and not to send you an illuminated 
postilion " (a previous letter having been ornamented with 
such a decoration at the top of the sheet), "but let you 
find your way to Venice in the dark as you can, and then 
and there, ' On the Rialto I will rate you,' and, being a 
man, you know there is no chance of my overrating you." 
The following passage from the same letter refers to some 
negotiations with which she had intrusted me relative to 
some illustrations she was bent on having in a forthcoming 
book she was about to publish : " As for the immortal 
Cruikshank, tell him that I am sure the mighty genius 
which conceived Lord Bateman could not refuse to give 
any lady the werry best, and if he does I shall pass the rest 
of my life registering a similar wo^o to that of the fair 
Sophia, and exclaiming, 'I vish, George Cruikshank, as 
you vas mine.' " 

The rest of the long, closely-written, four-paged letter is 
an indiscriminate and bitter, though joking attack, upon 
the race of publishers. She calls Mr. Colburn an "em- 



IN FLORENCE. 335 

bodied shiver," which will bring a smile to the lips of those 
— few, I fear — who remember the little man. 

Here are some extracts from a still longer letter written 
to my mother much about the same time : " I hear Lady 

S has committed another novel, called 'The Three 

Peers,' no doubt Vim pire que V autre! ... I have a great 
many kind messages to you from that very charming per- 
son Madame Recamier, who fully intends meeting you at 
Venice with Chateaubriand in October, for so she told me 
on Sunday. I met her at Miss Clarke's some time ago, 
and as I am a bad pusher I am happy to say she asked to 
be introduced to me, and was, thanks to you, my kind 
friend ! She pressed me to go and see her, which I have 
done two or three times, and am going to do again at her 
amiable request on Thursday. I think that her fault is 
tliat she flatters a little too much. And flattery to one 
whose ears have so long been excoriated by abuse does not 
sound safe. However, all is right when she speaks of you. 
And the point she most eulogized in you is that which I 
have heard many a servile coward who could never go and 
do likewise " [no indication is to be found either in this 
letter or elsewhere to whom she alludes] "select for the 
same purpose, namely, your straightforward, unflinching, 
courageous mtegrity. . . . Balzac is furious at having his 
new play suppressed by Thiers, in which Arnauld acted 
Louis Philippe, wig and all, to the life ; but, as I said to 
M. Dupin, * C''est tout natiirel que M. Thiers ne permetterait 
dpersoiine de jouer Louis Philippe que lui-inerae.'' . . . There 
is a wonderful pointer here that has been advertised for 
sale for twelve hundred francs. A friend of mine went 
to see him, and, after mounting up to a little garret about 
the size of a chessboard,*«z« vingt-septihne, he interrogated 
the owner as to the dog's education and acquirements, to 
which the man replied, ' Pour pa, mo7isieur, c'est un chien 
parfait. Je lui at tout appris onoi-meme dans ma cham- 
&re.'* After this my friend did not sing 'Together let us 
range the fields !' . . . Last week I met Colonel Potter 

* " As for that, sir, the dog is perfect. I liave myself taught him every- 
thing in my oion room P 



336 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

M'Queen, who was warm in his praises of you, and the 
great good your 'Michael Armstrong'" (the factory story) 
" had done. . . . Last Thursday despatches arrived, and 
Lord Granville had to start for London at a moment's 
notice. 1 was in hopes this beastly ministry were out ! 
But no such luck ! For they are a compound of glue, 
sticking-plaster, wax, and vice — the most adhesive of all 
known mixtures." 

Before concluding my recollections of Rosina, Lady 
Lytton Bui we r, 1 tliink it right to say that I consider my- 
self to have perfectly sufficient grounds for feeling certain 
that the whispers which were circulated in a cowardly 
and maliojnant fashion as^ainst the correctness of her con- 
duct as a woman were wholly unfounded. Her failings 
and tendency to failings lay in a quite different direction. 
I knew perfectly well the person whose name was men- 
tioned scandalously in connection with hers, and knew the 
whole history of the relationship that existed between 
them. The gentleman in question was for years Lady 
Bulwer's constant and steadfast friend. It is quite true 
that he would fain have been something more, but true 
also that his friendship survived the absolute rejection of 
all warmer sentiments by the object of it. It was almost 
a matter of course that such a woman as Lady Bulwer, 
living unprotected in the midst of such a society as that 
of Florence in those days, should be so slandered. And 
were it not that there were very few if any persons at the 
time, and I think certainly not one still left, able to speak 
upon the subject with such connaissance de cause as I can, 
I should not have alluded to it. 

She was an admirably charming companion before the 
footlights of the world's stage — not so uniformly charm- 
ing behind its scenes, for her unreasonableness always and 
her occasional violence were very difficult to deal with. 
But she was, as Dickens' poor Jo says in " Bleak House," 
" werry good to me !" 



CHAPTER XXV. 

IN FLORENCE. 

After some little time and trouble we found an apart- 
ment in the Palazzo Berti, in the ominously named Via 
dei Malcontenti. It was so called because it was at one 
time the road to the Florentine Tyburn. Our house was 
the one next to the east end of the church of Santa Croce. 
Our rooms looked on to a large garden, and were pleasant 
enough. We witnessed from our windows the building 
of the new steeple of Santa Croce, which was completed 
before we left the house. 

It was built in great measure by an Englishman, a Mr, 
Sloane, a fervent Catholic, who was at that time one of 
the best-known figures in the English colony at Florence. 

He was a large contributor to the recently completed 
fagade of the Duomo in Florence, and to many other be- 
nevolent and pietistic good works. He had been tutor in 
the Russian Boutourlin family, and when acting in that 
capacity had been taken, by reason of his geological ac- 
quirements, to see some copper mines in the Volterra 
district, which the grand duke had conceded to a company 
under whose administration they w^ere going utterly to 
the bad. Sloane came, saw, and eventually conquered. 
In conjunction with Horace Hall, the then well-known 
and popular partner in the bank of Signor Emanuele 
Fenzi (one of whose sons married an English wife, and is 
still my very good and forty-years-old friend), he obtained 
a new concession of the mines from the grand duke on 
very favorable terms, and by the time I made his acquaint- 
ance had become a w^ealthy man. I fancy the Halls, Hor- 
ace and his much-esteemed brother Alfred (who survived 
him many years, and was tlie father of a family, one of 
the most respected and popular of the English colony dur- 
ing the whole of my Florence life), subsequently consid- 
15 



338 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

ered themselves to have been shouldered out of the enter- 
prise by a certam unhandsome treatment on the part of 
the fortunate tutor. What may have been the exact his- 
tory of the matter I do not know. But I do know that 
Sloane always remained on very intimate terms with the 
grand duke, and was a power in the inmost circles of the 
ecclesiastic world. 

He used to give great dinners on Friday, the principal 
object of which seemed to be to show how magnificent a 
feast could be given without infringing by a hair's-breadth 
the rule of the Church. And admirably he succeeded in 
showing how entirely the spirit and intention of the 
Church in prescribing a fast could be made of none ef- 
fect by a skilfully managed observance of the letter of 
its law. 

The only opportunity I ever had of conversing with 
Cardinal Wiseman was in Casa Sloane. And w^hat I 
chiefly remember of his eminence was his evident annoy- 
ance at the ultra-demonstrative zeal of the female portion 
of the mixed Catholic and Protestant assembly, who icoiild 
kneel and kiss his hand. A schoolmaster meeting boys in 
society, who, instantly on his appearance should begin un- 
buttoning their brace buttons behind, would hardly appre- 
ciate the recognition more gratefully. 

Within a very few weeks of our establishment in Casa 
Berti my mother's home became, as usual, a centre of at- 
traction and pleasant intercourse, and her weekly Friday 
receptions were always crowded. If I were to tell every- 
thing of what I remember in connection with those days, 
I should produce such a book as non dt, non homines^ non 
concessere volum7im — a book such as neither publishers, 
nor readers, nor the columns of the critical journals would 
tolerate, and should fill my pages with names, wdiich, how- 
ever interesting thej^ may still be for me, would hardly 
have any interest for the public, however gentle or pensive. 

One specialty, and that not a pleasant one, of a life so 
protracted as mine has been in the midst of such a society 
as that of Florence in those days, is the enormous quan- 
tity of the names which turn the tablets of memory into 
palimpsests, not twice, but fifty times written over ! — un- 



IX FLORENCE. 339 

pleasant, not from tbc thronging in of tlie motley company, 
but from the inevitable passing out of them from the field 
of vision. One's recollections come to resemble those of 
the spectator of a phantasmagoric show. Processions of 
heterogeneous figures, almost all of them connected in 
some way or other with more or less pleasant memories, 
troop across the magic circle of light, only, alack ! to van- 
ish into uttermost night when they pass beyond its limit. 
Of course all this is inevitable from the migratory nature 
of such a society as that which was gathered together on 
the banks of the Arno. 

Some fixtures — comparatively fixtures — of course there 
were, who gave to our moving quicksand-like society some 
degree of cohesion. 

Chief among these was, of course, the British minister — 
at the time of our arrival in Florence, and many years 
afterwards — Lord Holland. A happier instance of the 
right man in the right place could hardly be met with. 
At his great omnium-gatherum dinners and receptions — 
his hospitality was of the most catholic and generous sort 
— both he and Lady Holland (how pretty she then was 
there is her very clever portrait by Watts to testify) never 
failed to win golden opinions from all sorts and conditions 
of men and women. And in the smaller circle, which as- 
sembled in their rooms yet more frequently, they showed 
to yet greater advantage, for Lord Holland was one of the 
most amusing talkers I ever knew. 

Of course many of those who ought to have been grate- 
ful for their admission to the minister's large receptions 
were discontented at not being invited to the smaller ones. 
And it was by some of these malcontents with more wit 
than reason that Lady Holland was accused of receiving 
in two very distinct fashions — en menage and en tnma- 
gerie. The 7not was a successful one, and nobody was more 
amused by it than the spirituelle lady of whom it was said. 
It was too happy a mot not to have been stolen by divers 
pilferers of such articles, and adapted to other persons 
and other occasions. But it was originally spoken of the 
time, place, and person here stated to have been the object 
of it. 



340 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

Generally, in such societies in foreign capitals, a fruit- 
ful source of Jealousy and discord is found in the neces- 
sary selection of those to be presented at the court of the 
reigning sovereign. But this, as far as I remember, was 
avoided in those halcyon days by the simple expedient of 
presenting all vi^ho desired it. And that Lord Holland 
icas the right man in the right place as regards this matter 
the following anecdote will show. 

When Mr. Hamilton became British minister at Flor- 
ence, it was announced that his intention was, for the 
avoiding of all trouble and jealousy on the subject, to ad- 
here strictly to the proper and recognized rule. He would 
present everybody and anybody who had been presented 
at home, and nobody who had not been so presented. 
And he commenced his administration on these lines, and 
the grand duke's receptions at the Pitti became notably 
weeded. But this had not gone on for more than two or 
three weeks before it was whispered in the minister's ear 
that the grand duke would be pleased if he were less strict 
in the matter of his presentations. " Oh !" said Hamilton, 
" that's what he wants ! A la bo?ine heure ! He shall have 
them all, rag, tag, and bobtail." And so we returned to 
the Satmmia regna of " the good old times," and the duke 
was credibly reported to have said that he " kept the worst 
drawing-room in Europe." But, of course, his highness 
was thinking of the pockets of his liege Florentine letters 
of apartments and tradesmen, and was anxious only to 
make his city a favorite place of resort for the gold-bring- 
ing foreigners from that distant and barbarous western 
isle. The pope, you see, had the pull in the matter of 
gorgeous Church ceremonies, but he couldn't have the 
fertilizing barbarians dancing in the Vatican once a week ! 

One more anecdote I must find room for, because it is 
curiously illustrative in several ways of those tempi passati, 
die non tornano piil. Florence was full of refugees from 
the political rigors of the papal government, who had for 
some time past found there an unmolested refuge. But 
the aspect of the times was becoming more and more 
alarming to Austria, and the TJuchmi, as we called the 
sovereigns of Modena and Parma ; and pressure was put 



IN FLORENCE. 34 1 

on the duke by the pontifical government insisting on the 
demand that these refugees should be given up by Tus- 
cany. Easy-going Tuscany, not yet in any wise alarmed 
for herself, fought oif the demand for a while, but was at 
last driven to notify her intention of acceding to it. It 
was in these circumstances that Massino d' Azeglio came 
to me one morning, in the garden of our house in the Via 
del Giglio — the same in which the poet Milton lodged 
w^hen he was in Florence — to which we had by that time 
moved, and told me that he wanted me to do something 
for him. Of course I professed all readiness, and he went 
on to tell me of the critical and dangerous position in 
wdiich the refugees of whom I have spoken were placed, 
and said that I must go to Lord Holland and ask him to 
give them British passports. He urged that nothing could 
be easier, that no objection could possibly be taken to it ; 
that the Tuscan government was by no means desirous of 
giving up these men, and would only be too glad to get 
out of it ; that England both at Malta and in the Ionian 
Islands had plenty of Italian subjects — and, in short, I 
undertook the mission, I confess w4th very small hopes of 
success. Lord Holland laughed aloud when I told my 
tale, and said he thought it was about the most audacious 
request that had ever been made to a British minister. 
But he ended by granting it. Doubtless he knew very 
well the truth of what d' Azeglio had stated — that the 
Tuscan government w^ould be much too well pleased to 
ask any questions ; and the passports w^ere given. 

It w^as not long after our establishment in the Yia dei 
Malcontenti that a great disaster came upon Florence and 
its inhabitants and guests. Arno was not in the habit of 
following the evil example of the Tiber by treating Flor- 
ence as the latter so frequently did Rome. But in the 
winter of the year 1844 a terrible and unprecedented flood 
came. The rain fell in such torrents all one night that 
it was feared that the Arno, already much swollen, would 
not be able to carry off the waters with sufiicient rapidity. 
I went out early in the morning before breakfast, in com- 
pany with a younger brother of the Dr. Nicholson of Pen- 
rith whom I have mentioned, who happened to be visiting 



342 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

lis. We climbed to the top of Giotto's tower, and saw at 
once the terrible extent and very serious character of the 
misfortune. One third, at least, of Florence was under 
water, and the flood was rapidly rising. Coming down 
from our lofty observatory, we made our way to the 
" Lung' Arno," as the river quays are called. And there 
the sight was truly a terrible and a magnificent one. The 
river, extending in one turbid, yellow, swirling mass from 
the walls of the houses on the quay on one side to those 
of the houses opposite, was bringing down with it frag- 
ments of timber, carcasses of animals, large quantities of 
hay and straw — and amid the wreck we saw a cradle with 
a child in it, safely navigating the tumbling waters ! It 
was drawn to the window of a house by throwing a line 
over it, and the infant navigator was none the worse. 

But very great fears were entertained for the very an- 
cient Ponte Vecchio, with its load of silversmiths' and 
jewellers' shops, turning it from a bridge into a street — 
the only remaining example in Europe, I believe, of a 
fashion of construction once common. The water con- 
tinued to rise as we stood watching it. Less than a foot 
of space yet remained between the surface of the flood 
and the keystone of the highest arch ; and it was thought 
that if the water rose sufiiciently to beat against the solid 
superstructure of the bridge, it must have been swept 
away. But at last came the cry from those who were 
watching it close at hand, that for the last five minutes 
the surface had been stationary ; and in another half -hour 
it was followed by the announcement that the flood had 
begun to decrease. Then there was an immense sensa- 
tion of relief ; for the Florentines love their old bridge ; 
and the crowd began to disperse. 

All this time I had not had a mouthful of breakfast, 
and we betook ourselves to Doney's hottega to get a cup 
of coffee before going home. But when we attempted 
this we found that it was more easily said than done. The 
Via dei Malcontenti as well as the whole of the Piazza di 
Santa Croce was some five feet under water. We suc- 
ceeded, however, in getting aboard a large boat, which 
was already engaged in carrying bread to the people in 



IN FLORENCE. 343 

the most deeply flooded parts of the town. But all difli- 
culty was not over. Of course the street door of the Pa- 
lazzo Berti was shut, and no earthly power could open it. 
Our apartment was on the second floor. Our landlord's 
family occupied the prima. Of course I could get in at 
their windows and then go up-stairs. And we had a lad- 
der in the boat ; but the mounting to the first floor by 
this ladder, placed on the little deck of the boat, as she 
was rocked by the torrent, was no easy matter, especially 
for me, who went first. Eventually, however, Nicholson 
and I both entered the window, hospitably opened to re- 
ceive us, in safety. 

But it was one or two days before the flood subsided 
sufiiciently for us to be provisioned in any other manner 
than by the boat ; and for long years afterwards social 
events were dated in Florence as having happened "be- 
fore or after the flood." In those days, and for many 
days subsequently to them, Florence did indeed — as I have 
observed when speaking of the motives which induced us 
to settle there — join to its other attractions that of being 
an economical place of residence. Our money consisted 
of piastres, pauls, and crazie. Eight of the latter were 
equal to a paul, ten of which were equivalent to a piastre. 
The value of the paul was, as nearly as possible, equal to 
fivepence-half penny English. The lira — the original rep- 
resentative of the leading denomination of our own I. s. d. 
— no longer existed in — the flesh I was going to say, but 
rather in — the metal. And it is rather curious that, just 
as the guinea remained, and indeed remains, a constantly 
used term of speech after it has ceased to exist as current 
coin, so the scudo remained, in Tuscany, no longer visi- 
ble or current, but retained as an integer in accounts of 
the larger sort. If you bought or sold house or land, for 
instance, you talked of scudi. In more every-day matters 
piastre or "francesconi" were the integers used, the latter 
being only a synonym for the former. And the propor- 
tion in value of the scudo and the piastre was exactly the 
same as that of the guinea and the sovereign, the former 
being worth ten and a half pauls, and the latter ten. The 
handsomest and best preserved coin ordinarily current 



344 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

was the florin, worth two panls and a half. Gold we 
rarely saw, but golden sequins {zecchmi) were in exist- 
ence, and were traditionally used, as it was said, for I have 
no experience in the matter, in the payment by the gov- 
ernment of prizes worn in the lottery. 

Now, after this statement the reader will be in a posi- 
tion to appreciate the further information that a flask of 
excellent Chianti, of a quality rarely met with nowadays, 
was ordinarily sold for one paul. The flask contained 
(legal measure) seven troy pounds weight of liquid, or 
about three bottles. The same sum purchased a good 
fowl in the market. The subscription {abhuonamento) to 
the Pergola, the principal theatre, came to exactly two 
crazie and a half for each night of performance. This price 
admitted you only to the pit, but as yon were perfectly free 
to enter any box in which there were persons of your ac- 
quaintance, the admission in the case of a bachelor, perma- 
nently or temporarily such, was all that was necessary to 
him. And the price of the boxes was small in proportion. 

These boxes were indeed the drawing-rooms in which 
very much of the social intercourse of the beau uionde 
was carried on. The performances were not very fre- 
quently changed (two operas frequently running through 
an entire season), and people went four or five times a 
week to hear, or rather to be present at, the same rejDre- 
sentation. And except on first nights or some other such 
occasion, or during the singing of the well-known tid-bits 
of any opera, there was an amount of chattering in the 
house which would have made the hair of a fcmatico per 
la musica stand on end. There was also an exceedingly 
comfortable but very parsimoniously lighted large room, 
which was a grand flirting-place, where people sat very 
patiently during the somewhat long operation of having 
their names called aloud, as their carriages arrived, by 
an ofiicial, who knew the names and addresses of us all. 
We also knew his mode of adapting the names of foreign- 
ers to his Italian organs. "Hasa" (Florentine for casa) 
" Trolo-pe," with a long-drawn-out accent on the last 
vowel, was the absolutely fatal signal for the sudden 
breaking-up of many a pleasant chat. 



IN FLORENCE. 345 

Florence was also, in those days, an especially economi- 
cal place for those to whom it was pleasant to enjoy, dur- 
ing the whole of the gay season, as many balls, concerts, 
and other entertainments as they could possibly desire, 
without the necessity, or indeed the possibility, of putting 
themselves to the expense of giving anything in return. 
There w^as a weekly bail at the Pitti Palace, and another 
at the Casino dei Nobili, which latter was supported en- 
tirely by the Florentine aristocracy. There were two or 
three balls at the houses of the foreign ministers, and gen- 
erally one or two given by two or three wealthy Floren- 
tine nobles — there were a few, but very few such. 

Perhaps the pleasantest of all these were the balls at 
the Pitti. They were so entirely sans gene. No court 
dress was required save on the first day of the year, when 
it was de rigueur. But absence on that occasion in no way 
excluded the absentee from the other balls. Indeed, save 
to a new-comer, no invitations to foreigners were issued, 
it being understood that all who had been there once 
were welcome ever after. The Pitti balls were not by 
any means concluded, but rather divided into two, by a 
very handsome and abundant supper, at which, to tell 
tales out of school (but then the offenders have no doubt 
mostly gone over to the majority), the guests used to be- 
have abominably. The English would seize the plates 
of honhons and empty the contents bodily into their coat 
pockets. The ladies would do the same with their pocket- 
handkerchiefs. But the duke's liege subjects carried on 
their depredations on a far bolder scale. I have seen large 
portions of fish, sauce and all, packed up in a newspaper, 
and deposited in a pocket. I have seen fowls and ham 
share the same fate without any newspaper at all. I have I 
seen jelly carefully wrapped in an Italian countess's laced 
tnouchoir ! I think the servants must have had orders not 
to allow entire bottles of wine to be carried away, for I 
never saw that attempted, and can imagine no other rea- 
son why. I remember that those who affected to be 
knowing old hands used to recommend one to specially 
pay attention to the Grand Ducal Rhine wdne, and re- 
member, too, conceiving a suspicion that certain of these 
15* 



346 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

connoisseurs based their judgment in this matter wholly 
on their knowledge that the duke possessed estates in 
Bohemia ! 

The English were exceedingly numerous in Florence at 
that time, and they were reinforced by a continually in- 
creasing American contingent, though our cousins had 
not yet begun to come in numbers rivalling our own, as 
has been the case recently. By-the-bye, it occurs to me 
that I never saw an American pillaging the supper-table ; 
though, I may add, that American ladies would accept 
any amount of honhons from English blockade-runners. 

And the mention of American ladies at the Pitti re- 
minds me of a really very funny story, which may be told 
without offence to any one now living. I have a notion 
that I have seen this story of mine told somewhere, with 
a change of names and circumstances that spoil it, after 
the fashion of the people "who steal other folks' stories 
and disfigure them, as gypsies do stolen children to es- 
cape detection." 

I had one evening at the Pitti, some years, however, 
after my first appearance there, a very pretty and naively 
charming American lady on my arm, whom I was endeav- 
oring to amuse by pointing out to her all the personages 
whom I thought might interest her, as we walked through 
the rooms. Dear old Dymock, the champion, was in Flor- 
ence that winter, and was at the Pitti that night. I dare 
say that there may be many now who do not know with- 
wit being told, that Dymock, the last champion, as I am 
almost afraid I must call him — though doubtless Scrivelsby 
must still be held by the ancient tenure — was a very small 
old man, a clergyman, and not at all the sort of individ- 
ual to answer to the popular idea of a champion. He was 
sitting in a nook all by himself, and not looking very he- 
roic or very happy as we passed, and, nudging my com- 
panion's arm, I whispered, "That is the champion." The 
interest I excited was greater than I had calculated on, 
for the lady made a dead stop, and facing round to gaze 
at the old gentleman, said, " Why, you don't tell me so ! 
I should never have thought that that could be the fellow 
who licked Heenan ! But he looJcs a pluclzy little chapT'' 



IN FLORENCE. 347 

Perhaps the reader may have forgotten, or even never 
known, that the championship of the pugilistic world had 
then recently been won by Sayers — I think that was the 
name — in a fight with an antagonist of the name of Heenan. 
In fact it was I, and not my fair companion, who was a 
muff, for having imagined that a young American woman, 
nearly fresh from the other side of the Atlantic, was likely 
to know or ever have heard anything about the champion 
of England. 

There happened to be several Lincolnshire men that 
year in Florence, and there was a dinner at which I, as 
one of the " web-footed," by descent if not birth, was 
present, and I told them the story of my Pitti catastrophe. 
The lady's concluding words produced an effect which 
may be imagined more easily than described. 

The grand duke at these Pitti balls used to show him- 
self and take part in them as little as might be. The 
grand duchess used to walk through the rooms some- 
times. The grand duchess, a Neapolitan princess, was 
not beloved by the Tuscans ; and I am disposed to believe 
that she did not deserve their affection. But there was 
at that time another lady at the Pitti, the dowager grand 
duchess, the widow of the late grand duke. She had 
been a Saxon princess, and was very favorably contrasted 
with the reigning duchess in graciousness of manner, in 
appearance — for though a considerably older, she was still 
an elegant-looking woman — and, according to the popular 
estimate, in character. She also would occasionally walk 
through the rooms ; but her object, and indeed that of 
the duke, seemed to be to attract as little attention as 
possible. 

Only on the first night of the year, when we were all in 
grayi gala^ i. e., in court-suits or uniform, did any personal 
communication with the grand duke take place. His man- 
ner, when anybody was presented to him on these or oth- 
er occasions, was about as bad and unprincely as can well 
be conceived. His clothes never fitted him. He used to 
support himself on one foot, hanging his head towards 
that side, and occasionally changing the posture of both 
foot and head, always simultaneously. And he always 



348 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

appeared to be struggling painfully with the conscious- 
ness that he had nothing to say. It was on one of these 
occasions that an American new arrival was presented to 
him by Mr. Maquay, the banker, who always did that office 
for Americans, the United States having then no repre- 
sentative at the grand ducal court. Maquay, thinking to 
help the duke, whispered in his ear that the gentleman 
was connected by descent with the great Washington ; 
upon which the duke, changing his foot, said, '^ Ah! le 
grand VashP'' His manner was that of a lethargic and 
not wide-awake man. When strangers would sometimes 
venture some word of compliment on the prosperity and 
contentment of the Tuscans his reply invariably was, 
'^ jSono tranquillV — they are quiet. But, in truth, much 
more might have beeii said ; for, assuredly, Tuscany was 
a Land of Goshen in the midst of the peninsula. There 
was neither want nor discontent (save among a very small 
knot of politicians, who might almost have been counted 
on the hand) nor crime. There was at Florence next to 
no police of any kind, but the streets were perfectly safe 
by night or by day. 

There was a story, much about that time, which made 
some noise in Europe, and was very disingenuously made 
use of, as such stories are, of a certain Florentine and his 
wife, named Madiai, who had been, it was asserted, perse- 
cuted for reading the Bible. It was not so. They were 
" persecuted " for, i. 6., restrained from, preaching to oth- 
ers that they ought to read it, which is, though doubtless 
a bad, yet a very different thing. 

I believe the grand duke {gran ciuGO — great ass — as 
his irreverent Tuscans nicknamed him) was a good and 
kindly man, and, under the circumstances and to the ex- 
tent of his abilities, not a bad ruler. The phrase which 
Giusti applied to him, and which the inimitable talent of 
the satirist has made more durable than any other memo- 
rial of the poor gran ciuco is likely to be, " asciuga tasche 
e maremme " — he dries up pockets and marshes — is as un- 
just as such mots of satirists are wont to be. The drain- 
ing of the great marshes of the Chiana, between Arezzo 
and Chiusi, was a well-considered and most beneficent 



IN FLORENCE. 349 

work on a magnificent scale, which, so far from "drying 
pockets," added enormously to the wealth of the country, 
and is now^ adding yerj appreciably to the prosperity of 
Italy. Nor was Giusti's reproach in any way merited by 
the grand ducal government. The grand duke, person- 
ally, was a very wealthy man, as well as, in respect to his 
own habits, a most simple liver. The necessary expenses 
of the little state were small, and taxation was so light 
that a comparison between that of the Saturnian days in 
question and that under which the Tuscans of the present 
day not unreasonably groan might afford a text for some 
very far-reaching speculations. The Tuscans of the pres- 
ent day may preach any theological doctrines they please 
to any who will listen to them, or, indeed, to those who 
won't, but it would be curious to know how many individ- 
uals among them consider that, or any other recently ac- 
quired liberty, well bought at the price they pay for it. 

The grand duke was certainly not a great or wise man. 
He was one of those men of whom their friends habitually 
say that they are " no fools," or " not such fools as they 
look," which generally may be understood to mean that 
the individual spoken of cannot, with physiological accu- 
racy, be considered a cretin. Nevertheless, in his case the 
expression was doubtless accurately true. He was not 
such a fool as he looked, for his appearance w^as certainly 
not that of a wise, or even an intelligent man. 

One story is told of him w^hich I have reason to believe 
perfectly true, and which is so characteristic of the man 
and of the time that I must not deprive the reader of it. 

It was the custom that on St. John's Day the duke 
should visit and inspect the small body of troops w^ho 
w^ere lodged in the Fortezza di San Giovanni, or Fortezza 
da Basso, as it was popularly called, in contradistinction 
from another fort on the high ground above the Boboli 
Gardens, And it was expected that, on these occasions, 
the sovereign should address a few words to his soldiers. 
So the duke, resting his person first on one leg and then 
on the other, after his fashion, stood in front of the two 
or three score of men drawn up in line before him, and, 
after telling them that obedience to their officers and at" 



350 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

tachment to duty were the especial virtues of a soldier, lie 
continued, " Above all, my men, I desire that you should 
remember the duties and observances of our holy religion, 
and — and — " (here, having said all he had to say, his high- 
ness was at a loss for a conclusion to his harangue. But, 
looking down on the ground as he strove to find a fitting 
peroration, he observed that the army's shoes were sadly 
in want of the blacking-brush, so he concluded, with more 
of animation and significance than he had before evinced) 
" and keep your shoes clean !" 

I may find room further on to say a few words of what 
I remember of the revolution which dethroned poor gran 
ciuco. But I may as well conclude here what I have to 
say of him by relating the manner of his final exit from 
the soil of Tuscany, of which the malicious among the 
few who knew the circumstances were wont to say — very 
unjustly — that nothing in his reign became him like the 
leaving of it. I saw him pass out from the Porta San 
Gallo on his way to Bologna among a crowd of his late 
subjects, who all lifted their hats, though not without 
some satirical cries of ^' Addio, saiP'' '''' Buon viaggioP'' 
But a few — a very few — friends accompanied his carriage 
to the papal frontier, an invisible line on the bleak Apen- 
nines, unmarked by any habitation. There he descended 
from his carriage to receive their last adieus, and there 
was much lowly bowing as they stood on the highway. 
The duke, not unmoved, bowed lowly in return, but, un- 
fortunately, backing as he did so, tripped himself up with 
characteristic awkwardness, and tumbled backwards on a 
heap of broken stones prepared for the road, with his 
heels in the air, and exhibiting to his unfaithful Tuscans 
and ungrateful duchy, as a last remembrance of him, a 
full view of a part of his person rarely put forward on 
such occasions. 

And so exeunt from the sight of men and from history a 
grand duke and a grand duchy. 



CHAPTER XXYI. 

CHARLES DICKENS, 

It was not long after the flood in Florence — it seems to 
me, as I write, that I might almost leave out the two last 
words ! — that I saw Dickens for the first time. One morn- 
ing in Casa Berti my mother was most agreeably surprised 
by a card brought in to her with " Mr. and Mrs. Charles 
Dickens " on it. We had been among his lieartiest admir- 
ers from the early days of " Pickwick." I don't think we 
had happened to see the "Sketches by Boz." But my 
uncle Milton used to come to Hadley full of " the last 
' Pickwick,' " and swearing that each number out-Pick- 
wicked Pickwick. And it was with the greatest curiosity 
and interest that we saw the creator of all this enjoyment 
enter in the flesh. 

We were at first disappointed, and disposed to imagine 
there must be some mistake. No ! that is not the man 
who wrote " Pickwick " ! What we saw was a dandified, 
pretty-boy-looking sort of figure ; singularly young-look- 
ing, I thought, with a slight flavor of the whipper-snapper 
genus of humanity. 

Here is Carlyle's description of his appearance at about 
that period of his life, quoted from Fronde's " History of 
Carlyle's Life in London": 

"He is a fine little fellow — Boz — I think. Clear-blue, 
intelligent eyes, eyebrows that he arches amazingly, large, 
protrusive, rather loose mouth, a face of most extreme 
mobility, which he shuttles about — eyebrows, eyes, mouth, 
and all — in a very singular manner when speaking. Sur- 
mount this with a loose coil of common-colored hair, and 
set on it a small, compact figure, very small, and dressed 
d la D'Orsay rather than well — this is Pickwick. For 
the rest, a quiet, shrewd-looking little fellow, who seems 
to guess pretty well what he is and what others are." 



352 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

One may perhaps venture to suppose that, had the sec- 
ond of these guesses been less accurate, the description 
might have been a less kindly one. 

But there are two errors to be noted in this sketch, 
graphic as it is. Firstly, Dickens' eyes were not blue, 
but of a very distinct and brilliant hazel — the color tradi- 
tionally assigned to Shakespeare's eyes. Secondly, Dick- 
ens, although truly of a slight, compact figure, was not a 
very small man. I do not think he was below the average 
middle height. I speak from my remembrance of him at 
a later day, when I had become intimate with him ; but, 
curiously enough, I find, on looking back into my mem- 
ory, that, if I had been asked to describe him as I first 
saw him, I, too, should have said that he was very small. 
Carlyle's words refer to Dickens' youth soon after he had 
published " Pickwick " ; and no doubt at this period he 
had a look of delicacy, almost of effeminacy, if one may 
accept Maclise's well-known portrait as a truthful record, 
which might give those who saw him the impression of his 
being smaller and more fragile in build than was the fact. 
In later life he lost this D'Orsay look completely, and was 
bronzed and reddened by wind and weather like a seaman. 

In fact, when I saw him subsequently in London, I think 
I should have passed him in the street without recognizing 
him. I never saw a man so changed. 

Any attempt to draw a complete pen-and-ink portrait of 
Dickens has been rendered forevermore superfluous, if it 
were not presumptuous, by the masterly and exhaustive 
life of him by John Forster. But one may be allowed to 
record one's own impressions, and any small incident or 
anecdote which memory holds, on the grounds set forth 
by the great writer himself, who says in the introduction 
to the " American Notes " (first printed in the biography) : 
"Very many works having just the same scope and range 
have been already published. But I think that these two 
volumes stand in need of no apology on that account. 
The interest of such productions, if they have an}^, lies in 
the varying impressions made by the same novel things 
on different minds, and not in new discoveries or extraor- 
dinary adventures," 



CHARLES DiCKEXS. 353 

At Florence Dickens made a pilgrimage to Landor's 
villa, the owner being then absent in England, and gath- 
ered a leaf of ivy from Fiesole to carry back to the veter- 
an poet, as narrated by Mr. Forster. Dickens is as accu- 
rate as a topographer in his description of the villa as 
looked down on from Fiesole. How often — ah, how often ! 
— have I looked down from that same dwarf wall over the 
matchless view where Florence shows the wealth of villas 
that Ariosto declares made it equivalent to two Romes ! 

Dickens was only thirty-three when I first saw him, 
being just two years my junior. I have said what he ap- 
peared to me then. As I knew him afterwards, and to 
the end of his days, he was a strikingly manly man, not 
only in appearance, but in bearing. The lustrous brilliancy 
of his eyes was very striking. And I do not think that I 
have ever seen it noticed that those wonderful eyes which 
saw so much and so keenly were appreciably, though to 
a very slight degree, near-sighted eyes. Very few per- 
sons, even among those who knew him well, were aware 
of this, for Dickens never used a glass. But he continu- 
ally exercised his vision by looking at distant objects, and 
making them out as well as he could without any artificial 
assistance. It was an instance of that force of will in him 
which compelled a naturally somewhat delicate frame to 
comport itself like that of an athlete. Mr. Forster some- 
where says of him, " Dickens' habits were robust, but his 
health was not." This is entirely true as far as my obser- 
vation extends. 

Of the general charm of his manner I despair of giving 
any idea to those who have not seen or known him. This 
was a charm by no means dependent on his genius. lie 
might have been the great writer he was and yet not have 
warmed the social atmosphere wherever he appeared with 
that summer glow which seemed to attend him. His laugh 
was brimful of enjoyment. There was a peculiar humor- 
ous protest in it when recounting or hearing anything 
specially absurd, as who should say " 'Pon my soul this is 
too ridiculous ! This passes all bounds !" and bursting 
out afresh as though the sense of the ridiculous over- 
whelmed him like a tide, which carried all hearers away 



354 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

with it, and which I well remember. His enthusiasm was 
boundless. It entered into everything he said or did. It 
belonged doubtless to that amazing fertility and wealth 
of ideas and feeling that distinguished his genius. 

No one having any knowledge of the profession of lit- 
erature can read Dickens' private letters and not stand 
amazed at the unbounded affluence of imagery, sentiment, 
humor, and keen observation which he poured out in 
them. There was no stint, no reservation for trade pur- 
poses. So with his conversation — every thought, every 
fancy, every feeling was expressed with the utmost vivac- 
ity and intensity, but a vivacity and intensity compatible 
with the most singular delicacy and nicety of touch when 
delicacy and nicety of touch were needed. 

What were called the exaggerations of his writing were 
due, I have no doubt, to the extraordinary luminosity of 
his imagination. He saw and rendered such an individu- 
ality as Mr. Pecksniff's or Mrs. Nickleby's, for instance, 
something after the same fashion as a solar microscope 
renders any object observed through it. The world in 
general beholds its Pecksniffs and its Mrs. Nicklebys 
through a different medium. And at any rate Dickens 
got at the quintessence of his creatures, and enables us all, 
in our various measures, to perceive it too. The proof of 
this is that we are constantly not only quoting the sayings 
and doings of his immortal characters, but are recognizing 
other sayings and doings as what they would have said or 
done. 

But it is impossible for one who knew him as I did to 
confine what he remembers of him either to traits of out- 
ward appearance or to appreciations of his genius. I must 
say a few, a very few words of what Dickens appeared to 
me as a man. I think that an epithet, which, much and 
senselessly as it has been misapplied and degraded, is yet, 
w^hen rightly used, perhaps the grandest that can be ap- 
plied to a human being, was especially applicable to him. 
He was a hearty man, a large-hearted man that is to say. 
He was perhaps the largest-hearted man I ever knew. I 
think he made a nearer approach to obeying the divine 
precept, " Love thy neighbor as thyself," than one man in 



CHARLES DICKENS. 355 

a hundred thousand. His benevolence, his active, ener- 
gizing desire for good to all God's creatures, and restless 
anxiety to be in some way active for the achieving of it, 
were unceasing and busy in his heart ever and always. 

But he had a sufficient capacity for a virtue which, I 
think, seems to be moribund among us — the virtue of 
moral indignation. Men and their actions were not all 
much of a muchness to him. There was none of the in- 
differentism of that pseudo-philosophic moderation which, 
when a scoundrel or scoundrelly action is on the tajns, 
hints that there is much to be said on both sides. Dick- 
ens hated a mean action or a mean sentiment as one hates 
something that is physically loathsome to the sio-ht and 
touch. And he could be angry, as those with whom he 
had been angry did not very readily forget. 

And there was one other aspect of his moral nature, of 
which I am reminded by an observation which Mr. For- 
ster records as having been made by Mrs. Carlyle. " Light 
and motion flashed from every part of it [his face]. It 
was as if made of steel." The first part of the phrase is 
true and graphic enough, but the image offered by the 
last words appears to me a singularly infelicitous one. 
There was nothing of the hardness or of the (moral) sharp- 
ness of steel about the expression of Dickens' face and 
features. Kindling mirth and genial fun were the expres- 
sions which those who casually met him in society were 
habituated to find there, but those who knew him well 
knew also well that a tenderness, gentle and sympathetic 
as that of a woman, was a mood that his surely never 
" steely " face could express exquisitely, and did express 
frequently. 

I used to see him very frequently in his latter years. I 
generally came to London in the summer, and one of the 
first things on my list was a visit to 20 Wellington Street. 
Then would follow sundry other visits and meetings — to 
Tavistock House, to Gadshill, at Verey's in Regent Street, 
a place he much patronized, etc., etc. I remember one 
day meeting Chauncy Hare Town send at Tavistock House 
and thinking him a very singular and not particularly 
agreeable man. Edwin Landseer, I remember, dined there 



356 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

the same day. But he had been a friend of my mother's, 
and was my acquaintance of long, long years before. 

Of course we had much and frequent talk about Italy, 
and I may say that our ideas and opinions, and especially 
feelings on that subject, were always, I think, in unison. 
Our agreement respecting English social and political 
matters was less perfect. But I think that it would have 
become more nearly so had his life been prolonged as 
mine has been. And the approximation would, if I am 
not much mistaken, have been brought about by a move- 
ment of mind on his part, which already I think those who 
knew him best will agree with me in thinking had com- 
menced. We differed on many points of politics. But 
there is one department of English social life — one with 
which I am probably more intimately acquainted than 
with any other, and which has always been to me one of 
much interest — our public-school system — respecting which 
our agreement was complete. And I cannot refrain from 
quoting. The opinion which he expresses is as true as if 
he had, like me, an eight years' experience of the system 
he is speaking of. And the passage which I am about to 
give is very remarkable as an instance of the singular 
acumen, insight, and power of sympathy which enabled 
him to form so accurately correct an opinion on a matter 
of which he might be supposed to know nothing. 

" In July," says Mr. Forster, writing of the year 1858-9, 
"he took earnest part in the opening efforts on behalf of the 
Royal Dramatic College, which he supplemented later by 
a speech for the establishment of schools for actors' chil- 
dren, in which he took occasion to declare his belief that 
there were no institutions in England so socially liberal 
as its public schools, and that there was nowhere in the 
country so complete an absence of servility to mere rank, 
position, and riches. ' A boy there ' " (Mr. Forster here 
quotes Dickens' own words) " ' is always what his abili- 
ties and personal qualities make him. We may differ 
about the curriculum and other matters, but of the frank, 
free, manly, independent spirit preserved in our public 
schools I apprehend there can be no kind of question.' " 

I have in my possession a great number of letters from 



CHARLES DICKENS. 357 

Dickens, some of which might probably have been pub- 
lished in the valuable collection of his letters published 
by his sister-in-law and eldest daughter had they been 
get-at-able at the time when they might have been avail- 
able for that publication.* But I was at Rome, and the 
letters were safely stowed away in England in such sort 
that it would have needed a journey to London to get at 
them. 

I was for several years a frequent contributor to House- 
hold VTords^ my contributions for the most part consist- 
ing of what I considered tid-bits from the byways of Ital- 
ian history, which the persevering plough of my reading 
turned up from time to time. 

In one case I remember the article was sent " to order." 
I was dining with him after I had just had all the remain- 
ing hairs on my head made to stand on end by the pe- 
rusal of the officially published " Manual for Confessors," 
as approved by superior authority for the dioceses of Tus- 
cany. I was full of the subject, and made, I fancy, the 
hairs of some who sat at table with me stand on end also. 
Dickens said, with nailing forefinger levelled at me, " Give 
us that for Household Words. Give it us just as you 
have now been telling it to us " — which I accordingly did. 
Whether the publication of that article was in any wise 
connected with the fact that when I wished to purchase a 
second copy of that most extraordinary work I was told 
that it was out of print, and not to be had, I do not know. 
Of course it was kept as continually in print as the " Latin 
Grammar," for the constant use of the class for whom it 
was provided, and who most assuredly could not have 
found their way safely through the wonderful intricacies 
of the confessional without it. And equally, of course, 
the publishers of so largely circulated a work did not 
succeed in preventing me from obtaining a second copy 
of it. 

* Some of the letters in question — such as I had with nie — were sent to 
London for that purpose. I do not remember now wliich were and which 
were not. But if it should be the case that any of those printed here have 
been printed before, I do not think any reader will object to having them 
again brought under his eye. 



358 WHAT I KEMEMBER. 

Many of the letters addressed to me by Dickens con- 
cerned more or less my contributions to his periodical, 
and many more are not of a nature to interest the public 
even though they came from him. But I may give a few 
extracts from three or four of them.* 

Here is a passage from a letter dated 3d of December, 
1861, which my vanity will not let me suppress. 

" Yes ; the Christmas number was intended as a conveyance of all 
friendly greetings in season and out of season. As to its lesson, you need 
it almost as Uttle as any man I know ; for all your study and seclusion 
conduce to the general good, and disseminate truths that men cannot too 
earnestly take to heart. Yes, a capital story that of ' The Two Seaborn 
Babbies,' and wonderfully droll, I think, I may say so without blushing, 
for it is not by me. It was done by Wilkie Collins." 

Here is another short note, not a little gratifying to me 
personally, but not without interest of a larger kind to the 
reader : 

*' Tuesday, 15th November, 1859. 
" My dear Trollope, — I write this hasty word, just as tlie post leaves, 
to ask you this question, which this moment occurs to me. 

" Moutalembert, in his suppressed treatise, asks, 'What wrong has Pope 
Pius the Ninth done?' Don't you think you can very pointedly answer 
that question in these pages ? If you cannot, nobody in Europe can. 

"Very faithfully yours always, Charlks Dickens." 

Some, some few, may remember the interest excited by 
the treatise to which the above letter refers. No doubt I 
could, and doubtless did, though I forget all about it, an- 
swer the question propounded by the celebrated French 
writer. But there was little hope of my doing it as " point- 
edly" as my correspondent would have done it himself. 
The answer, which might well have consisted of a succinct 
statement of all the difficulties of the position with which 
Italy was then struggling, had to confine itself to the 
limits of an article in All The Year Round, and needed, in 
truth, to be pointed. I have observed that, in all our many 
conversations on Italian matters, Dickens' views and opin- 
ions coincided with my own, without, I think, any point of 

* I wish it to be observed that any letters, or parts of letters, from 
Dickens here printed are published with the permission and authorization 
of his sister-in-law, Miss Georgina Hogarth. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 359 

divergence. Very sj^ecially was this the case as regards 
all that concerned the Vatican and the doings of the 
Curia. How well I remember his arched eyebrows and 
laughing eyes when I told him of Garibaldi's proposal 
that all priests should be summarily executed ! I think 
it modified his ideas of the possible utility of Garibaldi as 
a politician. 

Then comes an invitation to "my Falstaff house at 
Gadshill." 

Here is a letter of the 17th February, 1866, which I will 
give in extenso, bribed again by the very flattering words 
in which the writer sj^eaks of our friendship: 

" My dear Trollope, — I am heartily glad to hear from you. It was such 
a disagreeable surprise to find that you had left London [I had been! 
called away at an hour's notice] on the occasion of your last visit without 
my having seen you, that I have never since got it out of ray mind. I felt 
as if it were my fault (though I don't know how that can have been), and 
as if I had somehow been traitorous to the earnest and affectionate regard 
with which you have inspired me. 

"The lady's verses are accepted by the editorial potentate, and shall 
presently appear. [I am ashamed to say that I totally forget who the 
lady was.] 

" I am not quite well, and am being touched up (or down) by the doc- 
tors. Whether the irritation of mind I had to endure pending the discus- 
sions of a preposterous clerical body called a Convocation, and whether the 
weakened hopefulness of mankind which such a dash of the Middle Ages 
in the color and pattern of 1866 engenders, may have anything to do with 
it, I don't know. 

" What a happy man you must be in having a new house to work at. 
When it is quite complete, and the roc's egg hung up, I suppose you will 
get rid of it bodily and turn to at another. [Ahsit omen ! At this very 
moment, while I transcribe this letter, I am turning to at another.] 
, " Daily News correspondent [as I then for a short time was], Kovel, 
and Hospitality ! Enough to do, indeed ! Perhaps the day might be ad- 
vantageously made longer for such work — or say life. [Ah! if the small 
matters rehearsed had been all, I could more contentedly have put up with 
the allowance of four-and-twenty hours.] And yet I don't know. Like 
enough we should all do less if we had time to do more in. 

" Layard was with us for a couple of days a little while ago, and brought 
the last report of you, and of your daughter, who seems to have made a 
great impression on him. I wish he had had the keepership of the Na- 
tional Gallery, for I don't think his government will hold together through 
many weeks. 

" I wonder whether you thought as highly of Gibson's art as the lady did 
who wrote the verses. I must say that I did not, and that I thought it of 



360 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

a mechanical sort, with no great amount of imagination in it. It seemed 
to me as if he ' didn't find me ' in that, as the servants say, but only pro- 
vided me with carved marble, and expected me to furnish myself with as 
much idea as I could afford. 

" Very faithfully yours, Charles Dickens," 

I do not remember the verses, though I feel confident 
that the lady who sent them through me must have been 
a very charming person. As to Gibson, no criticism could 
be sounder. I had a considerable liking for Gibson as a 
man, and admiration for his character, but as regards his 
ideal productions I think Dickens hits the right nail on 
the head. 

In another letter of the same year, 25th July, after a 
page of remarks on editorial matters, he writes : 

" If Italy could but achieve some brilliant success in arms ! That she 
does not, -causes, I think, some disappointment here, and makes her slug- 
gish friends more sluggish, and her open enemies more powerful. I fear, 
too, that the Italian ministry have lost an excellent opportunity of repair- 
ing the national credit in London city, and have borrowed money in France 
for the poor consideration of lower interest, which [sic, but I suspect 
which must be a slip of the pen for than'] they could have got in England, 
greatly to the re-establishment of a reputation for public good faith. As to 
Louis Napoleon, his position in the whole matter is to me like his position 
in Europe at all times, simply disheartening and astounding. Between 
Prussia and Austria there is, in n)y mind (but for Italy), not a pin to 
choose. If each could smash the otlier I should be, as to those two powers, 
perfectly satisfied. But I feel for Italy almost as if I were an Italian born. 
So here you have in brief my confession of faith. 

"Mr. Home [as he by that time called himself — when he was staying 
in my house his name was Hume], after trying to come out as an actor, 
first at Fechter's (where I had the honor of stopping him short), and then 
at the St. James's Theatre under Miss Herbert (where he was twice an- 
nounced, and each time very mysteriously disappeared from the bills), was 
announced at the little theatre in Dean Street, Soho, as a 'great attraction 
for one night only,' to play last Monday. An appropriately dirty little rag 
of a bill, fluttering in the window of an obscure dairy behind the Strand, 
gave me this intelligence last Saturday. It is like enough that even that 
striking business did not come off, for I believe the public to have found 
out the scoundrel ; in which lively and sustaining hope this leaves me at 
present. Ever faithfully yours, Charles Dickens." 

Here is a letter which, as may be easily imagined, I 
value much. It was written on the 2d of November, 1866, 
and reached me at Brest. It was written to congratu- 



CHARLES DICKENS. 361 

late me on my second marriage, and among the great num- 
ber which I received on that occasion is one of the most 
warm-hearted : 

*' My dear Trollope, — I should have written immediately to congratu- 
late you on your then approaching marriage, and to assure you of my most 
cordial and affectionate interest in all that nearly concerns you, had I 
known how best to address you. 

" No friend that you have can be more truly attached to you than I am. 
I congratulate you with all my heart, and beUeve that your marriage will 
stand high upon the list of happy ones. As to your wife's winning- a high 
reputation out of your house — if you care for that ; it is not much as an 
addition to the delights of love and peace and a suitable companion for 
life — I have not the least doubt of her power to make herself famous. 

"I little thought what an important master of the ceremonies I was 
when I first gave your present wife an introduction to your mother. Bear 
me in your mind then as the unconscious instrument of your having given 
your best affection to a worthy object, and I shall be the best-paid master 
of the ceremonies since Nash drove his coach and six through the streets 
of Bath. Faithfully yours, Charles Dickkns." 

Among a heap of others I find a note of invitation writ- 
ten on the 9th of July, 1867, in which he says: "My 
* readings ' secretary, whom I am despatching to America 
at the end of this week, will dine with me at Yerey's in 
Regent Street at six exact to be wished God-speed. There 
will only be besides. Wills, Wilkie Collins, and Mr. Arthur 
Chappell. Will you come ? No dress. Evening left quite 
free." 

I went, and the God-speed party was a very pleasant 
one. But I liked best to have him, as I frequently had, all 
to myself. I suppose I am not, as Johnson said, a " clubba- 
ble" man. At all events I highly appreciate what the 
Irishman called a tatur-tatur dinner, whether the gender 
in the case be masculine or feminine ; and I incline to give 
my adherence to the philosophy of the axiom that declares 
"two to be company, and three none." But then I am 
very deaf, and that has doubtless much to do with it. 

On the 10th of September, 1868, Dickens writes : 

"The madness and general political bestiality of the general election will 
come off in the appropriate Guy Fawkes days. It was proposed to me, un- 
der very flattering circumstances indeed, to come in as the third member 
for Birmingham ; I replied in what is now my stereotyped phrase, ' that no 
16 



362 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

consideration on earth would induce me to become a candidate for the rep- 
resentation of any place in the House of Commons.' Indeed, it is a dismal 
sight, is that arena altogether. Its irrationality and dishonesty are quite 
shocking. [What would he have said now !] How disheartening it is, 
that in affairs spiritual or temporal mankind will not begin at the begin- 
ning, but will begin with assumptions. Could one believe without actual 
experience of the fact, that it would be assumed by hundreds of thousands 
of pestilent boobies, pandered to by politicians, that the Established Church 
ill Ireland has stood between the kingdom and popery, when as a crying 
grievance it has been popery's trump-card. 

" I have now growled out my growl, and feel better. 

" With kind regards, my dear Trollope, 

" Faithfully yours, Charles Dickens." 

In the December of that year came another growl, as 
follows : 

"Kennedy's Hotel, Edinburgh. 

*' My dear Trollope, — I am reading here, and had your letter forward- 
ed to me this morning. The MS. accompanying it was stopped at Alt Tlie 
Year Bound office (in compliance with general instructions referring to any 
MS. from you) and was sent straight to the printer. 

" Oh dear, no ! Nobody supposes for a moment that the English Church 
will follow the Irish Establishment. In the whole great universe of sham- 
mery and flummery there is no such idea floating. Everybody knows that 
the Church of England as an endowed establishment is doomed, and 
would be, even if its hand wei'e not perpetually hacking at its own throat; 
but as was observed of an old lady in gloves in one of my Christmas books, 
'Let us be polite or die!' 

"Anthony's ambition [in becoming a candidate for Beverley] is in- 
scrutable to me. Still, it is the ambition of many men ; and the honester 
the man who entertains it, the better for the rest of us, I suppose. 
"Ever, my dear Trollope, 

"Most cordially yours, Charles Dickens." 

Here is another " growl," provoked by a species of char- 
latan, which he, to whom all charlatans were odious, es- 
pecially abominated — the pietistic charlatan : 

" Oh, we have such a specimen here ! a man who discourses extempo- 
raneously, positively without the power of constructing one grammatical 
sentence ; but who is (ungrammatically) deep in Heaven's confidence on 
the abstrusest points, and discloses some of his private information with 
an idiotic complacency insupportable to behold. 

"We are going to have a bad winter in England too probably. What 
with Ireland, and what with the last new government device of getting in 
the taxes before they are due, and what with vagrants, and what with 
fever, the prospect is gloomy." 



CHARLES DICKENS. 363 

The last letter I ever received from bim is dated the 
10th of November, 1869. It is a long letter, but I will 
give only one passage from it, which has, alas ! a pecul- 
iarly sad and touching significance when read with the 
remembrance of the catastrophe then hurrying on, which 
was to put an end to all projects and purposes. I had 
been suggesting a walking excursion across the Alps. He 
writes : 

" Walk across tlie Alps ? Lord bless you, I am * going ' to take up my 
alpenstock and cross all the passes. And, I am 'going' to Italy. I am 
also ' going ' up the Nile to the second cataract ; and I am ' going ' to Je- 
rusalem, and to India, and likewise to Australia. My only dimness of per- 
ception in this wise is, that I don't know v)hen. If I did but know when, 
I should be so wonderfully clear about it all ! At present I can't see even 
so much as the Simplon in consequence of certain farewell readings and a 
certain new book (just begun) interposing their dwarfish shadow. But 
whenever (if ever) I change ' going ' into ' coming,' I shall come to see you. 

"With kind regards, ever, my dear Trollope, 

" Your affectionate friend, Charles Dickens." 

And those were the last words I ever had from him ! 



I 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

AT LUCCA BATHS. 

In those days — temporihus illis, as the historians of 
long-forgotten centuries say — there used to be a very 
general exodus of the English colony at Florence to the 
baths of Lucca during the summer months. Almost all 
Italians, who can in any wise afford to do so, leave the 
great cities nowadays for the seaside, even as those do 
who have preceded them in the path of modern luxurious 
living. But at the time of which I am writing the Flor- 
entines who did so were few, and almost confined to that 
inner circle of the fashionable world which partly lived 
with foreigners, and had adopted in many respects their 
modes and habits. Those Italians, however, who did leave 
their Florence homes in the summer, went almost all of 
them to Leghorn. The baths of Lucca were an especially 
and almost exclusively English resort. 

It was possible to induce the vetturini who supplied 
carriages and horses for the purpose to do the journey to 
the baths in one day, but it was a very long day, and it 
was necessary to get fresh horses at Lucca. There was 
no good sleeping-place between Florence and Lucca — nor 
indeed is there such now — and the journey from the capi- 
tal of Tuscany to that of the little Duchy of Lucca, now 
done by rail in less than two hours, was quite enough for 
a vetturmo's pair of horses. And when Lucca was reached 
there were still fourteen miles, nearly all collar work, be- 
tween that and the baths, so that the plan more generally 
preferred was to sleep at Lucca. 

The baths (well known to the ancient Romans, of course, 
as what warm springs throughout Europe were not ?) con- 
sisted of three settlements, or groups of houses — as they 
do still, for I revisited the well-remembered place two or 
three years ago. There was the " Ponte," a considerable 



AT LUCCA BATHS. 365 

village gathered round the lower bridge over the Lima, at 
which travellers from Florence first arrived. Here were 
the assembly-rooms, the reading-room, the principal baths, 
and the gaming-tables — for in those pleasant wicked days 
the remote little Lucca baths were little better than Baden 
subsequently and Monte Carlo now. Only we never, to 
the best of my memory, suicided ourselves, though it 
might happen occasionally that some innkeeper lost the 
money which ought to have gone to him, because "the 
bank" had got hold of it first. 

Then, secondly, there was the "Villa," about a mile 
higher up the lovely little valley of the Lima, so called 
because the duke's villa was situated there. The Villa 
had more the pretension — a very little more — of looking 
something like a little bit of town. At least it had its one 
street paved. The ducal villa was among the woods im- 
mediately above it. 

The third little group of buildings and lodging-houses 
was called the "Bagni Caldi." The hotter, and, I fancy, 
the original springs were there, and it was altogether more 
retired and countrified, nestling closely among the chest- 
nut woods. The whole surrounding country, indeed, is one 
great chestnut forest, and the various little villages, most 
of them picturesque in the highest degree, which crown 
the summits of the surrounding hills, are all of them 
closely hedged in by the chestnut woods, which clothe 
the slopes to the top. These villages burrow in what 
they live on like mice in a cheese, for many of the in- 
habitants never taste any other than chestnut-flour bread 
from year's end to year's end. 

The inhabitants of these hills, and indeed those of the 
duchy generally, have throughout Italy the reputation of 
being morally about the best population in the peninsula. 
Servants from the Lucchese, and especially from the dis- 
trict I am here speaking of, were, and are still, I believe, 
much prized. Lucca, as many readers will remember, en- 
joys among all the descriptive epithets popularly given to 
the different cities of Italy, that of Lucca la industriosa. 

To us migratory English those singularly picturesque 
villages which capped all the hills, and were reached by 



366 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

curiously ancient paved mule-paths zig-zagging up among 
the chestnut woods, seemed to have been created solely 
for artistic and picnic purposes. The Saturnian nature of 
the life lived in them may be conceived from the informa- 
tion once given me by the inhabitants of one of these 
mountain settlements in reply to some inquiry about the 
time of day, that it was always noon there when the priest 
was ready for his dinner. 

Such were the summer quarters of the English Floren- 
tine colony, temporibus illis. There used to be, I remem- 
ber, a somewhat amusingly distinctive character attrib- 
uted, of course in a general way subject to exceptions, to 
the different groups of the English rusticating world, ac- 
cording to the selection of their quarters in either of the 
above three little settlements. The "gay" world pre- 
ferred the "Ponte," where the gaming-tables and ball- 
rooms were. The more strictly "proper" people went to 
live at the " Villa," where the English Church service was 
performed. The invalid portion of the society, or those 
who wished quiet, and especially economy, sought the 
" Bagni Caldi." 

In a general way we all desired economy, and found it. 
The price at the many hotels was nine pauls a day for 
board and lodging, including Tuscan wine, and was as 
much a fixed and invariable matter as a penny for a penny 
bun. Those who wanted other wine generally brought it 
with them, by virtue of a ducal ordinance which specially 
exempted from duty all wine brought by English visitors 
to the Baths. 

I dare say, if I were to pass a summer there now, I 
should find the atmosphere damp, or the wine sour, or the 
bread heavy, or the society heavier, or indulge in some 
such unreasonable and unseasonable grumbles as the near 
neighborhood of fourscore years is apt to inspire one 
with ; but I used to find it amazingly pleasant once upon 
a time. It is a singular fact, which the remembrance of 
those days suggests to me, and which I recommend to the 
attention of Mr. Gallon and his co-investigators, that the 
girls were prettier then than they are in these days, or that 
there were more of them ! The stupid people, who are 



AT LUCCA BATHS. 357 

always discovering subjective reasons for objective obser- 
vations, are as impertinent as stupid ! 

The Duke of Lucca used to do his utmost to make the 
baths attractive and agreeable. There is no Duke of Lucca 
now, as all the world knows. The Congress of Vienna put 
an end to him by ordaining that, when the ducal throne of 
Parma should become vacant, the reigning Duke of Lucca 
should succeed to it, while his duchy of Lucca should be 
united to Florence. This change took place while I was 
still a Florentine. The Duke of Lucca would none of the 
new dukedom proposed to him. He abdicated, and his 
son became Duke of Parma. This son was, in truth, a 
great ne'er-do-well, and very shortly got murdered in the 
streets of his new capital by an offended husband. 

The change was most unwelcome to Lucca, and especially 
to the baths, which had thriven and prospered under the 
fostering care of the old duke. He used to pass every 
summer there, and give constant very pleasant, but very 
little royal, balls at his villa. The Tuscan satirist Giusti, 
in the celebrated little poem in which he characterizes the 
different reigning sovereigns in the peninsula, calls him 
the Protestant Don Giovanni, and says that in the roll of 
tyrants he is neither fish nor flesh. 

Of the first two epithets I take it he deserved the second 
more than the first. His Protestantizing tendencies might, 
I think, have been more accurately described as non-Cathol- 
icizing. But people are very apt to judge in this matter 
after the fashion of the would-be dramatist, who, on being 
assured that he had no genius for tragedy, concluded that 
he must therefore have one for comedy. The duke's Prot- 
estantism, I suspect, limited itself to, and showed itself in, 
his dislike and resistance to being bothered by the rulers 
of neighboring states into bothering anybody else about 
their religious opinions. As for his place in the " roll of 
tyrants," he was always accused of (or praised .for) liberal- 
izing ideas and tendencies, which would in those days have 
very soon put an end to him and his tiny duchy, if he had 
attempted to govern it in accordance with them. As mat- 
ters were, his " policy," I take it, was pretty well confined 
to the endeavor to make his sovereignty as little trouble- 



368 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

some to himself or anybody else as possible. His subjects 
were very lightly taxed, for his private property rendered 
him perfectly independent of them as regarded his own 
personal expenditure. 

The "gayer" part of our little world at the baths used, 
as I have said, more especially to congregate at the " Ponte," 
and the more "proper" portion at the "Villa," for, as I 
have also said, the English Church service was performed 
there, in a hired room, as I remember, when I first went 
there. But a church was already in process of being built, 
mainly by the exertions of a lady, who assuredly cannot 
be forgotten by any one who ever knew the baths in those 
days, or for many years afterwards — Mrs. Stisted. Unlike 
the rest of the world, she lived neither at the " Ponte," nor 
at the " Villa," nor at the " Bagni Caldi," but at " The Cot- 
tage," a little habitation on the bank of the stream about 
half-way between the " Ponte " and the " Villa." Also un- 
like all the rest of the world, she lived there permanently, 
for the place was her own, or rather tlie property of her 
husband. Colonel Stisted. He was a long, lean, gray, 
faded, exceedingly mild, and perfectly gentlemanlike old 
man ; but she was one of the queerest people my roving 
life has ever made me acquainted with. 

She was the Queen of the Baths. On one occasion at 
the ducal villa, his highness, who spoke English perfectly, 
said, as she entered the room, " Here comes the Queen of 
the Baths !" " He calls me his queen," said she, turning 
to the surrounding circle with a magnificent wave of the 
hand and delightedly complacent smile. It was not ex- 
actly that that the duke had said, but he was immensely 
amused, as were we all, for some days afterwards. 

She was a stout old lady, with large, rubicund face and 
big blue eyes, surrounded by very abundant gray curls. 
She used to play, or j^rofess to play, the harp, and adopt- 
ed, as she explained, a costume for the purpose. This 
consisted of a loose, flowing garment, much like a muslin 
surplice, which fell back and allowed the arm to be seen 
when raised for performance on her favorite instrument. 
The arm probably was, or had once been, a handsome 
one. The large gray head and the large blue eyes and 



AT LUCCA BATHS. 360 

the drooping curls were also raised simultaneously, and 
the player looked singularly like the picture of King Da- 
vid similarly employed, which I have seen as a frontis- 
piece in an old-fashioned prayer-book. But the specialty 
of the performance was that, as all present always said, no 
sound whatever was heard to issue from the instrument ! 
" Attitude is everything," as we have heard in connection 
with other matters ; but with dear old Mrs. Stisted at her 
harp it was absolutely and literally so to the exclusion of 
all else. 

She and the good old colonel — he teas a truly good and 
benevolent man^ and, indeed, I believe she was a good 
and charitable woman, despite her manifold absurdities 
and eccentricities — used to drive out in the evening among 
her subjects — her subjects, for neither I nor anybody else 
ever heard him called King of the Baths ! — in an old-fash- 
ioned, very shabbj^ and very high -hung phaeton, some- 
times with her niece Charlotte — an excellent creature and 
universal favorite — by her side, and the colonel on the seat 
behind, ready to offer the hospitality of the place by his 
side to any mortal so favored by the queen as to have re- 
ceived such an invitation. 

The poor dear old colonel used to play the violoncello, 
and did at least draw some more or less exquisite sounds 
from it. But one winter they paid a visit to Rome, and 
the old man died there. She w^ished, in accordance doubt- 
less with his desire, to bring back his body to be buried 
in the place they had inhabited for so many years, and 
with which their names were so indissolubly entwined in 
the memory of all who knew them — which means all the 
generations of nomad frequenters of the baths for many, 
many years. The Protestant burial-ground also was rec- 
ognized as quasi hers, for it is attached to the church 
which she was mainly instrumental in building. The colo- 
nel's body, therefore, was to be brought back from Rome 
to be buried at Lucca Baths. 

But such an enterprise was not the simplest or easiest 
thing in the world. There w^ere official difficulties in the 
way, ecclesiastical difficulties, and custom-house difficul- 
ties of all sorts. Where there is a will, however, there is 
16* 



370 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

a way. But the way which the determined will of the 
Queen of the Baths discovered for itself upon this occa- 
sion was one which would probably have occurred to few 
people in the world save herself. She hired a vetturino, 
and told him that he was to convey a servant of hers to 
the baths of Lucca, who would be in charge of goods 
which would occuj^y the entire interior of the carriage. 
She then obtained, what was often accorded without much 
difficulty in those days, from both the pontifical and the 
Tuscan governments, a lascia passare for the contents of 
the carriage as ho7id fide roha usata — " used up, or second- 
hand goods." And under this denomination the poor old 
colonel, packed in the carriage together with his beloved 
violoncello, passed the gates of Rome and the Tuscan 
frontier, and arrived safely at the place of his latest des- 
tination. The servant who was employed to conduct this 
singular operation did not above half like the job intrust- 
ed to him, and used to tell afterwards how he was fright- 
ened out of his wits, and the driver exceedingly aston- 
ished, by a sudden pom-m-m from the interior of the 
carriage, caused by the breaking, in consequence of some 
atmospheric change, of one of the strings of the violon- 
cello. 

Malicious people used to say that the Queen of the 
Baths was innocent of all deception as regarded the cus- 
tom-house officials; for that if any article was ever hon- 
estly described as roha usata, the old colonel might be so 
designated. 

The queen herself shortly followed (by another convey- 
ance), and was present at the interment, on which occasion 
she much impressed the population by causing a superb 
crimson chair to be placed at the head of the grave, in or- 
der that she might be present without standing during 
the service. The chair was well known, because the 
queen, both at the baths and at Florence, was in the habit 
of sending it about to the houses at which she visited, 
since she preferred doing so to incurring the risk of the 
less satisfactory accommodation her friends might offer 
her. 

If space and the readei^'s patience would allow of it, I 



AT LUCCA BATHS. 



371 



might gossip on of many more reminiscences of the baths 
of Lucca, all pleasant or laughable ; but I must conclude 
by the story of a tragedy, which I will tell, because it is, 
in many respects, curiously characteristic of the time and 
place. 

The duke, who, as I have said, spoke English perfectly 
well, was fond of surrounding lumself with foreign, and 
specially English, dependants. He had, at the time of 
which I am speaking, two English — or, rather, one English 
and one Irish — chamberlains, and a third, who, though a 
German, was, from having married an Englishwoman, and 
habitually speaking English, and living with Englishmen, 
much the same, at least to the duke, as an Englishman. 
The Englishman was a young man ; the German an older 
man, and the father of a family. And both were good, 
upright, and honorable men ; both long since gone over to 
the majority. 

The Irishman, also a young man, was a bad fellow ; but 
he was an especial favorite with the duke, who was strong- 
ly attached to him. It is not necessary to print his name. 
He has gone to his account. But it might nevertheless 
happen that the printing of my story with his name in 
these pages might still give pain to somebody. 

There was also that year an extremely handsome and 
attractive lady, a widow, at the baths. I will not give 
her name either ; for, though there was no sort of blame 
or discredit of any kind attached or attachable to her from 
any part of my story, as she is, I believe, still living, and 
as the memory of that time cannot but be a painful one 
to her, it is as well to suppress it. The lady, as I have 
said, was handsome and young, and, of course, all the 
young fellows who got a chance flirted with her — en tout 
hien tout honneur. But the Irish chamberlain attached 
himself to her, not with any but perfectly avowable inten- 
tions, but more seriously than the other youngsters, and 
with an altogether serious eye' to her very comfortable 
dower. 

Now during that same summer there was at the Baths 
Mr. Plowden, the banker, from Rome. He was then a 
young man ; he has recently died an old one in the Eter- 



372 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

nal City. His name I mention in telling my story be- 
cause much blame was cast upon him at the time by 
people in Rome, in Florence, and at the Baths, who did 
not know the facts as entirely and accurately as I knew 
them ; and I am able here to declare publicly what I have 
often declared privately, that he behaved well and blame- 
lessly in the whole matter. 

And probably, though I have no distinct recollection 
that it was so, Plowden may have also been smitten by 
the lady. Now, whether the Irishman imagined that the 
young banker was his most formidable rival, or whether 
there may have been some previous cause of ill-will be- 
tween the two men, I cannot say, but so it was that the 
chamberlain sent a challenge to the banker. The latter 
declined to accept it on the ground that he icas a banker 
and not a fighting -man, and that his business position 
would have been materially injured by his fighting a duel. 
The Irishman might have made the most of this triumph, 
such as it was ; but he was not content with doing so, and 
lost none of the opportunities, which the social habits of 
such a place daily afforded him, for insulting and out- 
raging his enemy. And he was continually boasting to 
his friends that before the end of the season he would 
compel him to come out and be shot at. 

And before the end of the season came his persistent 
efforts were crowned with success. Plowden, finding his 
life altogether intolerable under the harrow of the bully's 
insolence, at length one day challenged him. Then arose 
the question of the locality where the duel was to take 
place. The laws of the duchy were very strict against 
duelling, and the duke himself was strongly opposed to it. 
In the case of his own favorite chamberlain, too, his dis- 
pleasure was likely to be extreme. But in the neighbor- 
hood of the baths the frontier line which divides the 
Duchy of Modena from that of Lucca is a very irregular 
and intricate one. A little below the "Ponte" at the 
baths the Lima falls into the Serchio, and the upper valley 
of the latter river is of a very romantic and beautiful 
character. Now we all knew that hereabouts there were 
portions of Modenese territory interpenetrating that of 



AT LUCCA BATHS. 373 

the Duchy of Lucca, but none of us knew the exact line 
of the boundary. And the favorite chamberlain, with true 
Irish impudence, undertook to obtain exact information 
from the duke himself. 

There was a ball that night, at which the whole of the 
society was present ; and, strange as it may seem, I do 
not think there was a man there who did not know that 
the duel was to be fought on the morrow, except the duke 
himself. Many of the women even knew it perfectly well. 
The chamberlain, getting the duke into conversation on 
the subject of the frontier, learned from him that a cer- 
tain highly romantic gorge, opening out from the valley 
of the Serchio, and called Turrite Cava, which he pre- 
tended to take an interest in as a place fitted for a picnic, 
was within the Modenese frontier. 

All was arranged, therefore, for the meeting with pistols 
on the following morning ; and the combatants proceed- 
ed to the spot fixed on, some five or six miles, I think, from 
the Baths. Plowden, who, as a sedate business man, was 
less intimate with the generality of the young men at the 
Baths, was accompanied only by his second ; his adversary 
was attended by a whole cohort of acquaintances — really 
far more after the fashion of a party going to a picnic, or 
some other party of pleasure, than in the usual guise of 
men bent on such an errand. 

Plowden had never fired a pistol in his life, and knew 
about as much of the management of one as an archbishop. 
The other was an old duellist, and a practised performer 
with the weapon. All this was perfectly well known, and 
the young men around the Irishman were earnest with 
him during their drive to the ground not to take his ad- 
versary's life, beseeching him to remember how heavy a 
load on his mind would such a deed be during the whole 
future of his own. Not a soul of the whole society of the 
Baths, who by this time knew what was going on to a 
man, and almost to a woman (my mother, it may be ob- 
served, had not been at the ball, and knew nothing about 
it), doubted that Plowden was going out to be shot as 
certainly as a bullock goes into the slaughter-house to be 
killed. 



374 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

The Irishman, in reply to all the exhortations of his 
companions, jauntily told them not to distress themselves; 
he had no intention of killing the fellow, but would con- 
tent himself with "winging" him. He would have his 
right arm off as surely as he now had it on ! 

In the midst of all this the men were put up. At the 
first shot the Irishman's well-directed bullet whistled close 
to Plowden's head, but the random shot of the latter struck 
his adversary full in the groin. 

He was hastily carried to a little osteria^ which stood 
(and still stands) by the side of the road which runs up 
the valley of the Serchio, at no great distance from the 
mouth of the Turrite Cava gorge. There was a young 
medical man among those gathered there, who shook his 
head over the victim, but did not, I thought, seem very 
well up to dealing with the case. 

One of my mother's earliest and most intimate friends 
at Florence was a Lady Sevestre, who was then at the 
Baths with her husband. Sir Thomas Sevestre, an old Ind- 
ian army surgeon. He was a very old man, and was not 
much known to the younger society of the place. But it 
struck me that he was the man for the occasion. So I 
rushed off to the Baths in one of the bagherini (as the little 
light gigs of the country are called) which had conveyed 
the parties to the ground, and knocked up Sir Thomas. 
Of course, all the story came new to him, and he was very 
much inclined to wash his hands of it. But on my repre- 
sentations that a life was at stake, his old professional 
habits prevailed, and he agreed to go back with me to 
Turrite Cava. 

But no persuasions could induce him to trust himself to 
a hagherino. And truly it would have shaken the old man 
well-nigh to pieces. There was no other carriage to be 
had in a hurry. And at last he allowed me to get an arm- 
chair rigged with a couple of poles for bearers, and placed 
himself in it — not before he had taken the precaution of 
slinging a bottle of pale ale to either pole of his equipage. 
He wore a very wide-brimmed straw hat, a suit of pro- 
fessional black, and carried a large white sunshade. And 
thus accoutred, and accompanied by four stalwart bearers, 



AT LUCCA BATHS. 375 

he started, while I ran by the side of the chair, as queer- 
looking a party as can well be imagined. I can see it all 
now ; and should have been highly amused at the time had 
I not very strongly suspected that I was taking him to the 
bedside of a dying man. 

And when he reached his patient, a very few minutes 
sufficed for the old surgeon to pronounce the case an ab- 
solutely hopeless one. After a few hours of agony the 
bully, who had insisted on bringing this fate on himself, 
died that same afternoon. 

Then came the question who was to tell the duke. Who 
it was that undertook that disagreeable but necessary task 
I forget. But the duke came out to the little osteria im- 
mediately on hearing of the catastrophe ; also the English 
clergyman officiating at the Baths came out. And the 
scene in that large, nearly bare, upper chamber of the 
little inn was a strange one. The clergyman began pray- 
ing by the dying man's bedside, while the numerous as- 
semblage in the room all knelt, and the duke knelt with 
them, interrupting the prayers with his sobs after the un- 
controlled fashion of the Italians. 

He was very, very angry. But in unblushing defiance 
of all equity and reason his anger turned wholly against 
Plowden, who, of course, had placed himself out of the 
small potentate's reach within a very few minutes after 
the catastrophe, But the duke strove by personal appli- 
cation to induce the Grand Duke of Tuscany to banish 
Plowden from his dominions, which, to the young banker, 
one branch of whose business was at Florence and one at 
Rome, would have been a very serious matter. But this, 
poor old ciuco, more just and reasonable in this case than 
his brother potentate, the Protestant Don Giovanni of 
Lucca, refused to do. 

So our pleasant time at the Baths, for that season at 
least, ended tragically enough ; and whenever I have since 
visited that singularly romantic glen of Turrite Cava, its 
deep, rock-sheltered shadows have been peopled for me by 
the actors in that day's bloody work, 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE GARKOWS. SCIENTIFIC CONGRESSES. MY FIRST 

MARRIAGE. 

It was, to the best of my recollection, much about the 
same time as that visit of Charles Dickens which I have 
chronicled in the last chapter but one, which turned out 
to be eventually so fateful a one to me, as the correspond- 
ence there given shows, that my mother received another 
visit, which was destined to play an equally influential 
part in the directing and fashioning of my life. Equally 
influential perhaps I ought not to say, inasmuch as one- 
and-twenty years (with the prospect I hope of more) are 
more important than seventeen. But both the visits I am 
speaking of as having occurred within a few days of each 
other were big with fate, to me, in the same department 
of human affairs. 

The visit of Dickens was destined eventually to bring 
me my second wife, as the reader has seen. The visit of 
Mr. and Mrs. Garrow to the Via dei Malcontenti, much 
about the same time, brought me my first. 

The Arno and the Tiber both take their rise in the flanks 
of Falterona. It was on the banks of the first that my 
first married life was passed ; on those of the more south- 
ern river that the largest portion of my second wedded 
happiness was enjoyed. • 

Why Mr. and Mrs. Garrow called on my mother I do 
not remember. Somebody had given them letters of in- 
troduction to us, but I forget who it was. Mr. Garrow 
was the son of an Indian officer by a high-caste Brahmin 
woman, to whom he was married. I believe that unions 
between Englishmen and native women are common 
enough. But a marriage, such as that of my wife's grand- 
father I am assured was, is rare, and rarer still a marriage 
with a woman of hiojh caste. Her name was Sultana. I 



THE GARROWS. S11 

have never heard of any other name. Joseph Garrow, my 
father-in-law, was sent to England at an early age, and 
never again saw either of his parents, who both died 
young. His grandfather was an old Scotch schoolmaster 
at Hadley, near Barnet, and his great-uncle was the well- 
known Judge Garrow. My father-in-law carried about 
with him very unmistakable evidence of his Eastern origin 
in his yellow skin, and the tinge of the white of his eyes, 
which was almost that of an Indian. He had been edu- 
cated for the bar, but had never practised, or attempted 
to do so, having while still a young man married a wife 
with considerable means. He was a decidedly clever man, 
especially in an artistic direction, having been a very good 
musician and performer on the violin, and a draughtsman 
and caricaturist of considerable talent. 

The lady he married had been a Miss Abrams, but was 
at the time he married her the widow of (I believe) a naval 
officer named Fisher. She had by her first husband one 
son and one daughter. There had been three Misses 
Abrams, Jewesses by race undoubtedly, but Christians by 
baptism, whose parent or parents had come to this coun- 
try in the suite of some Hanoverian minister, in what ca- 
pacity I never heard. They were all three exceptionally 
accomplished musicians, and seem to have been well known 
in the higher social circles of the musical world. One of 
the sisters was the authoress of many once well-known 
songs, especially of one song called " Crazy Jane," which 
had a considerable vogue in its day. I remember hearing- 
old John Cramer say that my mother-in-law could, while 
hearing a numerous orchestra, single out any instrument 
which had played a false note — and this he seemed to 
think a very remarkable and exceptional feat. She was 
past fifty when Mr. Garrow married her, but she bore him 
one daughter, and Avhen they came to Florence both girls, 
Theodosia, Garrow's daughter, and Harriet Fisher, her 
elder half-sister, were with them, and at their second morn- 
ing call both came with them. 

The closest union and affection subsisted between the 
two girls, and ever continued till the untimely death of 
Harriet. But never were two sisters, or half-sisters, or 
indeed any two girls at all, more unlike each other. 



378 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

Harriet was neither specially clever nor specially pretty, 
but she was, I think, perhaps the most absolutely unselfish 
human being 1 ever knew, and one of the most loving 
hearts. And her position was one that, except in a nature 
framed of the kindliest clay, and moulded by the rarest 
perfection of all the gentlest and self-denying virtues, must 
have soured, or at all events crushed and quenched, the 
individual placed in such circumstances. She was simply 
nobody in the family save the ministering angel in the 
house to all of them. I do not mean that any of the vul- 
gar preferences existed which are sometimes supposed to 
turn some less favored member of a household into a Cin- 
derella. There was not the slightest shadow of anything 
of the sort. But no visitors came to the house or sought 
the acquaintance of the family for her sake. She had the 
dear, and, to her, priceless love of her sister. But no ad- 
miration, no pride of father or mother fell to her share. 
Her life was not made brilliant by the notice and friend- 
ship of distinguished men. Everything was for the 
younger sister. And through long years of this eclipse, 
and to the last, she fairly worshipped the sister who 
eclipsed her. Garrow, to do him justice, was equally af- 
fectionate in his manner to both girls, and entirely im- 
partial m every respect that concerned the material well- 
being of them. But Theodosia was always placed on a 
pedestal on which there was no room at all for Harriet. 
Nor could the closest intimacy with the family discover 
an}^ faintest desire on her part to share the pedestal. She 
was content and entirely happy in enjoying the reflected 
brightness of the more gifted sister. 

Nor would, perhaps, a shrewd judge, whose estimate of 
men and women had been formed by observation of aver- 
age humanity, have thought that the position which I have 
described as that of the younger of these two sisters was 
altogether a morally wholesome one for her. But the 
shrewd judge would have been wrong. Tliere never was 
a humbler, as there never was a more loving soul, than 
that of the Theodosia Garrow who became, for my perfect 
happiness, Theodosia Trollope. And it was these two 
qualities of humbleness and lovingness that, acting like 



THE GARROWS. 379 

invincible antiseptics on the moral nature, saved her from 
all " spoiling " — from any tendency of any amount of 
flattery and admii-ation to engender selfishness or self-suf- 
ficiency. Nothing more beautiful in the way of family 
affection could be seen than the tie which united in the 
closest bonds of sisterly affection those two so differently 
constituted sisters. Very many saw and knew what Theo- 
dosia was as my wife. Very few indeed ever knew what 
she was in her own home as a sister. 

When I married Theodosia Garrow she possessed just 
one thousand pounds in her own right, and little or no 
prospect of ever possessing any more ; while I on my side 
possessed nothing at all, save the prospect of a strictly 
bread-and-cheese competency at the death of my mother, 
and "the farm which I carried under my hat," as some- 
body calls it. The marriage w^as not made with the full 
approbation of my father-in-law; but entirely in accord- 
ance with the wishes of my mother, who simply, dear soul, 
saw in it, what she said, that " Theo " was, of all the girls 
she knew", the one she should best like as a daughter-in- 
law. And here again the wise folks of the world (and 
I among them !) would hardly have said that the step I 
then took was calculated, according to all the recognized 
chances and probabilities of human affairs, to lead to a 
life of contentment and happiness. I suppose it ought 
not to have done so. But it did. It would be mon- 
strously inadequate to say that I never repented it. What 
should I not have lost had I not done it ! 

As usual my cards turned up trumps, but they began 
to do so in a way that caused me much, and my wife 
more, grief at the time. Within two years after my mar- 
riage poor, dear, good, loving Harriet caught small-pox 
and died. She w^as much more largely endowed than 
her half-sister, to whom she bequeathed all she had. 

She had a brother, as I have said above. But he had al- 
together alienated himself from his family by becoming 
a Roman Catholic priest. There was no open quarrel. I 
met him frequently in after -years at Garrow's table at 
Torquay, and remember his bitter complaints that he was 
tempted by the appearance of things at table which he 



380 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

ought not to eat. It would have been of no use to give 
or bequeath money to him, for it would have gone im- 
mediately to Romanist ecclesiastical purposes. He had 
nearly stripped himself of his own considerable means, 
reserving to himself only the bare competence on which 
a Catholic priest might live. He was altogether a very 
queer fish. I remember his coming to me once in tear- 
ful but very angry mood, because, as he said, I had guile- 
fully spread snares for his soul ! I had not the smallest 
comprehension of his meaning till I discovered that his 
woe and wrath were occasioned by my having sent him as 
a present Berington's " Middle Ages." I had fancied that 
his course of studies and line of thought would have made 
the book interesting to him, utterly ignorant or oblivious 
of the fact that it labored under the disqualification of 
appearing in the " Index." 

I take it I knew little about the " Index " in those days. 
In after-years, when three or four of my own books had 
been placed in its columns, I was better informed. I re- 
member a very elegant lady who,having overheard my pres- 
ent wife mention the fact that a recently published book 
of mine had been placed in the " Index," asked her, with 
the intention of being extremely polite and complimentary, 
whether her (ray wife's) books had been put in the "Index." 
And when the latter modestly replied that she had not 
written anything that could merit such a distinction, her 
interlocutor, patting her on the shoulder with a kindly and 
patronizing air, said, " Oh, my dear, I am sure they will 
be placed there. They certainly ought to be." 

Mrs. Garrow, my wife's mother, was not, I tliink, an 
amiable woman. She must have been between seventy 
and eighty when I first knew her ; but she was still vigor- 
ous, and had still a pair of what must once have been mag- 
nificent, and were still brilliant and fierce black eyes. She 
was in no wise a clever woman, nor was our dear Harriet 
a clever girl. Garrow, on the other hand, and his daughter 
were both very markedly clever, and this produced a close- 
ness of companionship and alliance between the father and 
daughter which painfully excited the jealousy of the wife 
and mother. But it was totally impossible for her to cabal 



THE GARROWS. 



381 



with hei' daughter against the object of her jealousy. 
Harriet, always seeking to be a peacemaker, was ever, if 
peace could not be made, stanchly on Theo's side. I am 
afraid that Mrs. Garrow did not love her second daughter 
at all ; and I am inclined to suspect that my marriage was 
in some degree facilitated by her desire to get Theo out 
of the house. She was a very fierce old lady, and did not, 
I fear, contribute to the happiness of any member of her 
family. 

How well I remember the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. 
Garrow and those two girls in my mother's drawing-room 
in the Via dei Malcontenti. The two girls, I remember, 
were dressed exactly alike and very dov^dily. They had 
just arrived in Florence from Tours, I think, where they 
had passed a year, or perhaps two, since quitting " The 
Braddons " at Torquay ; and everything about them from 
top to toe was provincial, not to say shabby. It was a 
Friday, my mother's reception-day, and the room soon 
filled with gayly dressed and smart people, with more than 
one pretty girl among them. But I had already got into 
conversation with Theodosia Garrow, and, to the gross 
neglect of my duties as master of the house, and to the 
scandal of more than one fair lady, so I remained, till a 
summons more than twice repeated by her father took her 
away. 

It was not that I had fallen in love at first sight, as the 
phrase is, by any means. But I at once felt that I had 
got hold of something of a quite other calibre of intelli- 
gence from anything I had been recently accustomed to 
meet with in those around me, and with a moral nature 
that was sympathetic to my own. And I found it very 
delightful. It is no doubt true that, had her personal ap- 
pearance been other than it was, I should not probably 
have found her conversation equally delightful. But I 
am sure that it is equally true that had she been in face, 
figure, and person all she was, and at the same time stupid, 
or even not sympathetic, I should not have been equally 
attracted to her. 

She was by no means what would have been recognized 
by most men as a beautiful girl. The specialties of her 



382 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

appearance, in the first place, were in a great measure due 
to the singular mixture of races from which she had 
sprung. One half of her blood was Jewish, one quarter 
Scotch, and one quarter pure Brahmin. Her face was a 
long oval, too long and too lanky towards the lower part 
of it for beauty. Her complexion was somewhat dark, 
and not good. The mouth was mobile, expressive, per- 
haps more habitually framed for pathos and the gentler 
feelings than for laughter. The jaw was narrow, the 
teeth good and white, but not very regular. She had a 
magnificent wealth of very dark brown hair, not without 
a gleam here and there of what descriptive writers, of 
course, would call gold, but which really was more accu- 
rately copper color. And this grand and luxuriant wealth 
of hair grew from the roots on the head to the extremity 
of it, at her waist, when it was let down, in the most beau- 
tiful ripples. But the great feature and glory of the face 
were the eyes, among the largest I ever saw, of a deep 
clear gray, rather deeply set, and changing in expression 
with every impression that passed over her mind. The 
forehead was wide, and largely developed both in those 
parts of it which are deemed to indicate imaginative and 
idealistic power, and those that denote strongly marked 
perceptive and artistic faculties. The latter, perhaps, were 
the more prominently marked. The Indian strain showed 
itself in the perfect gracefulness of a very slender and 
elastic figure, and in the exquisite elegance and beauty of 
the modelling of the extremities. 

That is not the description of a beautiful girl. But it 
is the fact that the face and figure very accurately so de- 
scribed were eminently attractive to me physically, as well 
as the mind and intelligence, which informed them, were 
spiritually. They were much more attractive to me than 
those of many a splendidly beautiful girl, the immense 
superiority of whose beauty nobody knew better than I. 
Why should this have been so ? That is one of the mys- 
teries to the solution of which no moral or physical or 
psychical research has ever brought us an iota nearer. 

I am giving here an account of the first impression my 
future wife made on me. I had no thought of wooing 



SCIENTIFIC CONGRESSES. 383 

and winning her, for, as I have said, I was not in a posi- 
tion to marry. Meanwhile she was becoming acclimatized 
to Florentine society. She no longer looked dowdy when 
entering a room, but very much the reverse ; and the little 
Florentine world began to recognize that they had got 
something very much like a new Corinne among them. 
But of course I rarely got a chance of monopolizing her 
as I had done during that first afternoon. We were, how- 
ever, constantly meeting, and were becoming ever more 
and more close friends. When the GarroAvs left Florence 
for the summer, I visited them at Lucerne, and subse- 
quently met them at Venice. It was the year of the 
meeting of the Scientific Congress in that city. 

That was a pleasant autumn in Venice. By that time 
I had become pretty well over head and ears in love with 
the girl by whose side I generally contrived to sit in the 
gondolas, in the Piazza in the evening, et cgetera. It was 
lovely September weather — just the time for Venice. The 
summer days were drawing in, but there was the moon, 
quite light enough on the lagoons ; and we were a great 
deal happier than the day was long. 

Those Scientific Congresses, of which that at Venice 
was the seventh and the last, played a curious part, which 
has not been much observed or noted by historians, in the 
story of the winning of Italian independence. I believe 
that the first congress, at Pisa, I think, was really got up 
by men of science, with a view to furthering their own 
objects and pursuits. It was followed by others in succes- 
sive autumns at Lucca, Milan, Genoa, Naples, Florence, 
and this seventh and last at Venice. But Italy was in 
those days thinking of other matters than science. The 
whole air was full of ideas, very discordant all of them, 
and vague most of them, of political change. The gov- 
ernments of the peninsula thought twice, and more than 
twice, before they would grant permission for the first of 
these meetings. Meetings of any kind were objects of 
fear and mistrust to the rulers. Those of Tuscany, who 
were by comparison liberal, and, as known to be such, 
were more or less objects of suspicion to the Austrian, 
Roman, and Neapolitan governments, led the way in giv- 



384 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

ing the permission asked for ; and perhaps thought that an 
assembly of geologists, entomologists, astronomers, and 
mathematicians might act as a safety-valve, and divert 
men's minds from more dangerous subjects. But the cur- 
rent of the times was running too strongly to be so di- 
verted, and proved too much for the authorities and for 
the real men of science, who were, at least some of them, 
anxious to make the congresses really what they professed 
to be. 

Gradually these meetings became more and more mere 
social gatherings in outward appearance, and revolution- 
ary propagandist assemblies in reality. As regards the 
former aspect of them, the different cities strove to outdo 
each other in the magnificence and generosity of their re- 
ception of their "scientific" guests. Masses of publica- 
tions were prepared, especially topographical and histori- 
cal accounts of the city which played Amphytrion for the 
occasion, and presented gratuitously to the members of 
the association. Merely little guide-books, of which a few 
hundred copies were needed in the case of the earlier meet- 
ings, they became in the case of the latter ones at Naples, 
Genoa, Milan, and Venice, large and magnificently printed 
tomes, prepared by the most competent authorities and 
produced at a very great expense. 

Venice especially outdid all her rivals, and printed an 
account of the Queen of the Adriatic, embracing history, 
topography, science in all its branches, and artistic story, 
in four huge and magnificent volumes, which remains to 
the present day by far the best topographical monograph 
that any city of the peninsula possesses. This truly splen- 
did work, which brought out in the ordinary way could 
not have been sold for less than six or eight guineas, was 
presented, together with much other printed matter — an 
enormous lithographed panorama of Venice and her la- 
goons, some five feet long, in a handsome roll cover, I 
remember among them — to every " member " on his en- 
rolment as such. 

Then there were concerts and excursions and great 
daily dinners the gayest and most enjoyable imaginable, 
at which both sexes were considered to be equally scien- 



SCIENTIFIC CONGRESSES. 385 

tiiic and equally welcome. The dinners were not abso- 
lutely gratuitous, but the tickets for thera were issued at 
a price very much inferior to the real cost of the enter- 
tainment. And all this, it must be understood, was done 
not by any subscription of members scientific or other- 
wise, but by the city and its municipality; the motive for 
such expenditure being the highly characteristic Italian 
one of rivalling and outdoing in magnificence other cities 
and municipalities, or, in the historical language of Italy, 
" communes." 

Old Rome, with her dependent cities, made no sign 
during all these autumns of ever - increasing festivity. 
Pity that they should have come to an end before she did 
so ; for at the rate at which things were going, we should 
all, at least, have been crowned on the Capitol, if not made 
Roman senators, pour Vamour du Grec, as the savant says 
in the " Precieuses Ridicules," if we had gone to the Eter- 
nal City. 

But the fact was, that the soi-disant 'ologists kicked up 
their heels a little too audaciously at Venice under Aus- 
tria's nose ; and the government thought it high time to 
put an end to "science." 

For instance. Prince Canino made his appearance in the 
uniform of the Roman National Guard ! This was a little 
too much ; and the prince, all prince and Bonaparte as he 
was, was marched off to the frontier. Canino had every 
right to be there as a man of science ; for his acquire- 
ments in many branches of science were large and real; 
and specially as an entomologist he was known to be prob- 
ably the first in Italy. But he was the man who, when 
selling his principality of Canino, insisted on the insertion 
in the legal instrument of a claim to an additional five 
pauls (value about two shillings), for the title of prince 
which was attached to the possessor of the estates he was 
selling. He was an out-and-out avowed Republican, and 
was the blackest of black sheep to all the constituted gov- 
ernments of the peninsula. He looked as little as he felt 
and thought like a prince. He was a paunchy, oily-look- 
ing, black-haired man, whose somewhat heavy face was 
illumined by a brilliant black eye full of humor and a 
17 



386 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

moutli expressive of good-nature and bonhamie. His ap- 
pearance in the proscribed uniform might have been con- 
sidered by Austria, if her police authorities could have 
appreciated the fun of the thing, as wholesomely calcu- 
lated to throw ridicule on the hated institution. He was 
utterly unassuming and good-natured in his manner, and 
when seen in his ordinary black habiliments looked more 
like a well-to-do Jewish trader than anything else. 

As for the social aspects of these scientific congresses, 
they were becoming every year more festive, and, at all 
events to the ignoramus outsiders who joined them, more 
pleasant. My good cousin and old friend, then Colonel, 
now General, Sir Charles Trollope, was at Venice that au- 
tumn. I said, on meeting him, " Now the first thing is to 
make you a member." " Me, a member of a scientific 
congress !" said he. " God bless you, I am as ignorant 
as a babe of all possible 'epteras and 'opteras, and 'statics 
and 'matics." " Oh, nonsense ! we are all men of sci- 
ence here. Come along !" — i. e., to the ducal palace to 
be inscribed. " But what do you mean to tell them I 
am ?" he asked. " Well, let's see ! You must have 
superintended a course of instruction in the goose-step 
in your day ?" " Rather so," said he. " Very well, 
then. You are Instructor in Military Exercises in her B. 
M. Forces. You are all right. Come along !" And if 
I had said that he was Trumpeter Major of the 600th Regi- 
ment in the British Army it would doubtless have been 
equally all right. So said, so done. And I see his bewil- 
dered look now, as the four huge volumes, about a load 
for a porter, to which he had become entitled, together 
with medals and documents of many kinds, were put into 
his arms. 

Ah, those were pleasant days ! And while Italy, under 
the wing of science, was plotting her independence, I was 
busy in forging the chains of that dependence which was 
to be a more unmixed source of happiness to me than the 
independence which Italy was compassing has yet proved 
to her. 

Those chains, however, as regarded at all events the 
outward and visible signs of them, had not got forged yet. 



MY FIRST MARRIAGE. 387 

I certainly had not " proposed " to Theodosia. In fact, to 
the very best of my recollection, I never did " propose " 
to her — or "pop," as the hideous phrase is — any decisive 
question at all. We seem, to my recollection, to have 
come gradually, insensibly, and mutually to consider it a 
matter of course that what we wanted was to be married, 
and that the only matter which needed any words or con- 
sideration was the question how the difficulties in the way 
of our wishes were to be overcome. 

In the autumn of 1847 my mother and I went to pass 
the winter in Rome. My sister Cecilia's health had been 
failing; and it began to be feared that there was reason 
to suspect the approach of the malady which had already 
destroyed my brother Henry and my younger sister Emily. 
It was decided, therefore, that she should pass the winter 
in Rome. Her husband's avocations made it impossible 
for him to accompany her thither, and my mother there- 
fore took an apartment there to receive her. It was in a 
small palazzo in that part of the Via delle Quattro Fon- 
tane which is now situated between the Via Nazionale 
and the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, to the left of 
one going towards the latter. There was no Via Nazio- 
nale then, and the buildings which now make the Via delle 
Qnattro Fontane a continuous line of street existed only 
in the case of a few isolated houses and convents. It was 
a very comfortable apartment, roomy, sunny, and quiet. 
The house exists still, though somewhat modernized in 
outward appearance, and is, I think, the second, after one 
going towards Santa Maria Maggiore has crossed the new 
Via Nazionale. 

But the grand question was whether it could be brought 
about that Theodosia Garrow should be permitted to be 
my mother's guest during that winter. A hint on the 
matter was quite sufficient for my dear mother, although 
I do not think that she had yet any idea that I was minded 
to give her a daughter-in-law. Theodosia's parents had 
certainly no faintest idea that anything more than ordinary 
friendship existed between me and their daughter, or, if 
they had had such, she would certainly have never been 
allowed to accept my mother's invitation. As for Theo- 



388 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

dosia herself and her willingness to come, it seems to me, 
as I look back, that nothing was said between us at all, 
any more than anything was said about making her my 
wife. I think it was all taken for granted, sans mot dire, 
by both of us. But there was one person who knew all 
about it ; knew what was in both our hearts, and was 
eagerly anxious that the desire of them should be fulfilled. 
This was the good fairy, Harriet Fisher. Without the 
strenuous exertion of her influence on her mother and 
Mr. Garrow the object would hardly have been accom- 
plished. Of course the plea put forward was the great 
desirability of taking advantage of such an opportunity 
of seeing Rome. 

My sister, whose health, alas ! profited nothing by that 
visit to Rome, and could have been profited by no visit to 
any place on earth, became strongly attached to Theo- 
dosia ; and the affection which grew up between them was 
the more to the honor of both of them, in that they were 
far as the poles asunder in opinions and habits of thought. 
My sister was what in those days was called a " Puseyite." 
Her opinions were formed on the highest High-Church 
model, and her Church opinions made the greatest part, 
and, indeed, nearly the whole of her life. Theodosia had 
no Church opinions at all. High or Low. All her mind 
and interests were, at all events at that time, turned tow- 
ards poetry and art. Subsequently she interested herself 
keenly in political and social questions, but had hardly 
at that time begun to do so. But she made a conquest of 
my sister. 

Indeed it would have been very diflicult for any one to 
live in the same house with her without loving her. She 
was so bright, her sympathies so ready, her intelligence 
so large and varied, that day after day her presence and 
her conversation were a continual delight; and she was 
withal diflident of herself, gentle and unassuming to a 
fault. My mother had already learned to love her truly 
as a daughter, before there was any apparent probability 
of her becoming one. 

We did not succeed in bearing down all the opposition 
that in the name of ordinary prudence was made to our 



MY FIRST MARRIAGE. 339 

marriage, till the spring of forty-eight. We were finally 
married on the 3d of April in that year, in the British 
minister's chapel in Florence, in the quiet, comfortable 
way in which we used to do such things in those days. 

I told my good friend Mr. Plunkett (he had then be- 
come the English representative at the court of Tuscany) 
that I wanted to be married the next day. "All right," 
said he ; " will ten o'clock do ?" " Could not be better!" 
" Very good. Tell Robbins [the then English clergyman] 
I'll be sure to be there." So, at ten the next morning we 
looked in at the Palazzo Ximenes, and in about ten min- 
utes the business was done. 

Of Mr. Robbins, who was as kind and good a little man 
as could be, I may note, since I have been led to speak of 
him, the following rather singular circumstance. He was, 
as I have been told, the son of a Devonshire farmer, and 
his two sisters were the wives of two of the principal 
Florentine nobles, one having married the Marchese In- 
ghirami and the other the Marchese Bartolomei. What 
circumstances led to the accomplishment of a destiny ap- 
parently so strange for the family of a Devonshire farmer 
I never heard. The clergyman and his sisters were all 
much my seniors. 

After the expeditious ceremony we all— about half a 
score of us— went off to breakfast at the house of Mr. 
Garrow in the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella, and before 
noon my wife and I were off on a ramble among the Tus- 
can cities. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 

My very old friend, Colonel Grant — General Grant many- 
years before lie died — used to say that if he wished, with- 
out changing his place himself, to see the greatest possi- 
ble number of his friends and acquaintances, he should 
stand perpetually at the foot of the column in the Place 
Yendome. But it seems to me that at least as advan- 
tageous a post of observation for the purpose would be 
the foot of Giotto's tower in Florence ! Who in these 
days lives and dies without going to Florence ; and 
who goes to Florence without going to gaze on the 
most perfectly beautiful tower that human hands ever 
raised? 

Let me tell (quite parenthetically) a really good story 
of that matchless building, which yet, however, will hardly 
be appreciated at its full value by those who haye never 
seen it. When the Austrian troops were occupying Flor- 
ence, one of the white-coated officers had planted him- 
self in the piazza in front of the tower, and was gazing 
at it earnestly, lost in admiration of its perfect beauty. 
" Si svita, signore^'''' said a little street urchin, coming up 
behind him — " It unscrews, sir !" As much as to say, 
*' Wouldn't you like just to take it off bodily and carry 
it away ?" But, as I said, to apprehend the aptitude of 
the gamiii's sneer, one must have one's self looked on the 
absolute perfection of proportion and harmony of its every 
part, which really does suggest the idea that the whole 
might be lifted bodily in one piece from its place on the 
soil. Whether the Austrian had the wit to answer, " You 
are blundering, boy ; you are taking me for a Frenchman," 
I don't know. 

But I was saying, when the mention of the celebrated 
tower led me into telling, before I forgot it, the above 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 391 

story, that Florence was of all the cities of Europe that 
in which one might be likely to see the greatest number 
of old, and make the greatest number of new, acquaint- 
ances, I lived there for more than thirty years, and the 
number of persons, chiefly English, American, and Ital- 
ian, whom I knew during that period is astonishing. The 
number of them was of course all the greater from the 
fact that the society, at least so far as English and Ameri- 
cans were concerned, was to a very great degree a float- 
ing one. They come back to my memory, when I think 
of those times, like a long procession of ghosts. Most 
of them, I suppose, are ghosts by this time. They pass 
away out of one's ken, and are lost ! 

Some, thank Heaven, are not lost ; and some, though lost, 
will never pass out of ken. If I w^ere wn-iting only for 
myself I should like to send my memory roving among 
all that crowd of phantoms, catch them one after another 
as they dodge about, half eluding one when just on the 
point of recovering them, and, fixing them in memory's 
camera, photograph them one after another. But I cannot 
hope that such a gallery would be as interesting to the 
reader as it certainly would to me. And I must content 
myself with recording my recollections of those among 
them in whom the world may be supposed to take an 
interest. 

Theodosia Garrow^, when living with her parents at " The 
Braddons," at Torquay, had known Elizabeth Barrett. 
The latter was very much of an invalid at the time ; so 
much so, as I think I have gathered from my wife's talk 
about those times, as to have prevented her from being a 
visitor to "The Braddons." But Theodosia was, I take 
it, to be very frequently found by the side of the sofa to 
w^hich her friend was more or less confined. I fancy that 
Mr. Kenyon, w^ho was an old friend and family connec- 
tion of Elizabeth Barrett's family, and was also intimately 
acquainted wnth the Garrows and with Theodosia, must 
have been the first means of bringing the girls together. 
There were assuredly very few young women in England 
at that day to whom Theodosia Garrow in social inter- 
course w^ould have had to look up^ as to one on a higher 



392 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

intellectual level than her own. But Elizabeth Barrett 
was one of them. I am not talking of acqidretnents. Nor 
was my wife thinking of such when she used to speak of 
the poetess as she had known her at that time. I am talk- 
ing, as my wife used to talk, of pure native intellectual 
power. And I consider it to have been no small indica- 
tion of the capacity of my wife's intelligence, that she so 
clearly and appreciatingly recognized and measured the 
distance between her friend's intellect and her own. But 
this appreciation on the one side was in no w^se incom- 
patible with a large and generous amount of admiration 
on the other. And many a talk in long subsequent years 
left with me the impression of the high estimation which 
the gifted poetess had formed of the value of her highly, 
but not so exceptionally, gifted admirer. 

Of course this old friendship jDaved the way for a new 
one when the Brownings came to live in Florence. I flat- 
ter myself that that would in any case have found some 
raison cVetre. But the pleasure of the two girls — girls no 
more in any sense — in meeting again quickened the growth 
of an intimacy which might otherwise have been slower 
in ripening. 

To say that amid all that frivolous, gay, giddy, and, it 
must be owned, for the most part very unintellectual so- 
ciety (in the pleasures and pursuits of which, to speak 
honestly, I took, well pleased, my full share), my visits 
to Casa Guidi were valued by me as choice morsels of my 
existence, is to say not half enough. I was conscious 
even then of coming away from those visits a better man, 
with higher views and aims. And pray, reader, under- 
stand that any such effect was not produced by any talk 
or look or word of the nature of preaching, or anything 
approaching to it, but simply by the perception and ap- 
preciation of what Elizabeth Barrett Browning was ; of 
the immaculate purity of every thought that passed through 
her pellucid mind, and the indefeasible nobility of her 
every idea, sentiment, and opinion. I hope my reader is 
not so much the slave of conventional phraseology as to 
imagine that I use the word "purity" in the above sen- 
tence in its restricted, and one may say technical, sense. 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 393 

I mean the purity of the upper spiritual atmosphere in 
which she habitually dwelt ; the absolute disseverance of 
her moral as well as her intellectual nature from all those 
lower thoughts as well as lower passions which smirch the 
human soul. In mind and heart she was ichite — stainless. 
That is what I mean by purity. 

Her most intimate friend at Florence was a Miss Isabella 
Blagden, who lived for many years at Bellosguardo, in a 
villa commanding a lovely view over Florence and the 
valley of the Arno from the southern side, looking across 
it therefore to Fiesole and its villa-and-cypress-covered 
slopes. Whether the close friendship between Mrs. 
Browning and Isa Blagden (we all called her Isa always) 
was first formed in Florence, or had its commencement 
at an earlier date, I do not know. But Isa was also the 
intimate and very specially highly-valued friend of my 
wife and myself. And this also contributed to our com- 
mon friendship. Isa was (yes, as usual, " was," alas, though 
she was very much my junior) a very bright, very warm- 
hearted, very clever little woman, who knew everybody, 
and was, I think, more universally beloved than any other 
individual among us. A little volume of her poems was 
published after her untimely death. They are not such 
as could take by storm the careless ears of the world, 
which knows nothing about her, and must, I suppose, be 
admitted to be marked by that mediocrity which neither 
gods nor men can tolerate. But it is impossible to read 
the little volume without perceiving how choice a spirit 
the authoress must have been, and understanding how it 
came to pass that she was especially honored by the close 
and warm attachment of Mrs. Browning. I have scores 
of letters signed " Isa," or rather Sibylline leaves scrawled 
in the vilest handwriting on all sorts of abnormal frag- 
ments of paper, and despatched in headlong haste, gener- 
ally concerning some little projected festivity at Bellos- 
guardo, and advising me of the expected presence of some 
stranger whom she thought I should like to meet. Very 
many of such of these fragmentary scribblings as were 
written before the Brownings left Florence contain some 
word or reference to her beloved "Ba," for such was the 



394 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

pet name used between them, with what meaning or origin 
I know not. 

Dear Isa's death was to me an especially sad one, be- 
cause I thought, and think, that she need not have died. 
She lived alone with a couple of old servants, and though 
she was rich in troops of friends, and there were one or 
two near her during the day or two of her illness, they 
did not seem to have managed matters wdsely. Our Isa 
was extremely obstinate about calling in medical advice. 
It could not be done at a moment's notice, for a message 
had to be sent and a doctor to come from Florence. And 
this was not done till the second day of her illness. And 
I had good reason for thinking that, had she been prop- 
erly attended to on the first day, her life might have been 
saved. She would not let her friends send for the doc- 
tor, and the friends were unable to make her do so. Un- 
happily, I was absent for a few days at Siena, and returned 
to be met by the intelligence that she was dead. It seemed 
the more sad in that I knew that if I had been there I 
could have made her call a doctor before it was too late. 
Browning could also have done so ; but it was after the 
death of Mrs. Browning and his departure from Florence. 

How great her sorrow was for the death of her friend, 
Browning knew, doubtless, but nobody else, I think, in 
the world save myself. 

I have now before me one of her little scraps of letters, 
in which she encloses one from Mrs. Browning which is 
of the highest interest. The history and genesis of it is 
as follows : Shortly after the publication of the well-known 
and exquisite little poem on the god Pan in the Cornhill 
Magazine^ my brother Anthony wrote me a letter ven- 
turing to criticise it, in which he says: "The lines are 
very beautiful, and the working out of the idea is deli- 
cious. But I am inclined to think that she is illustrating 
an allegory by a thought, rather than a thought by an 
allegory. The idea of the god destroying the reed m 
making the instrument has, I imagine, given her occasion 
to declare that in the sublimation of the poet the man is 
lost for the ordinary purposes of man's life. It has been 
thus instead of being the reverse ; and I can hardly believe 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 395 

that she herself believes m the doctrine which her fancy- 
has led her to illustrate. A man that can be a poet is so 
much the more a man in becoming such, and is the more 
fitted for a man's best work. Nothing is destroyed, ani 
in preparing the instrument for the touch of the musician 
the gods do nothing for which they need weep. The idea, 
however, is beautiful, and it is beautifully worked." 

Then follows some verbal criticism which need not be 
transcribed. Going on to the seventh stanza he says, "In 
the third line of it, she loses her antithesis. She miuit 
spoil her man, as well as make a poet out of him — spoi. 
him as the reed is spoiled. Should we not read the lines 
thus : 

*' ' Yet one half beast is the great god Pan 

Or he would not have laughed by the river. 

Making a poet he mars a man ; 

The true gods sigh,' etc. ?" 

In justice to my brother's memory I must say that this 
was not written to me with any such presumptuous idea 
as that of offering his criticism to the poetess. But I 
showed the letter to Isa Blagden, and at her request left 
it with her. A day or two later she writes to me : " Dear 
friend, — I send you back your criticism and Mrs. B.'s re- 
joinder. She made me show it to her, and she wishes you 
to see her answer." Miss Blagden's words would seem 
to imply that she thought the criticism mine. And if she 
did, Mrs. Browning was doubtless led to suppose so too. 
Yet I think this could hardly have been the case. 

Of course my only object in writing all this here is to 
give the reader the great treat of seeing Mrs. Browning's 
"rejoinder." It is very highly interesting. 

" Dearest Isa, — Very gentle my critic is ; I am glad I got him out 
of you. But tell dear Mr. Trollope he is wrong nevertheless [here it 
certainly seems that she supposed the criticism to be mine] ; and that 
my ' thought ' was really and decidedly anterior [sic] to my ' allegory.' 
Moreover, it is my thought still. I meant to say that the poetic organiza- 
tion implies certain disadvantages ; for instance an exaggerated general 
susceptibility, . . .* which may be shut up, kept out of the way in every- 

* These dots do not indicate any hiatus. They exist in the MS, as here 
given. 



396 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

day life, and must be (or the man is ' marred,^ indeed, made a Rousseau or 
a Byron of), but which is necessarily, for all that, cultivated in the very 
cultivation of art itself. There is an inward reflection and refraction of 
the heats of life. . . .* doubling pains and pleasures, doubling, therefore, 
ti-e motives (passions) of life. I have said something of this in A. L. 
[" Aurora Leigh "]. Also there is a passion for essential truth (as appre- 
hei.ded) and a necessity for speaking it out at all risks, inconvenient to 
personal peace. Add to this and much else the loss of the sweet uncon- 
scious cool privacy among the ' reeds ' . . .* which I for one care so much 
for— the loss of the privilege of being glad or sorry, ill or well, without a 
'njiice.' That may have its glory to certain minds. But most people 
wjuld be glad to 'stir their tea in silence' when they are grave, and even 
h talk nonsense (much too frivolously) when they are merry, without its 
running the round of the newspapers in two worlds, perhaps. You know 
I don't invent, Isa. In fact, I am sorely tempted to send Mr. Trollope a 
letter I had this morning, as an illustration of my view, and a reply to his 
criticism. Only this letter, among many, begins with too many fair speeches. 
Still it seems written by somebody in earnest and with a liking for me. 
Its main object is to complain of the cowardly morality in Pan. Then a 
stroke on the poems before Congress. The writer has heard that I 'had 
been to Paris, was feted by the emperor, and had had my head turned by 
imperial flatteries,' in consequence of which I had taken to ' praise and 
flatter the tyrant, and try to help his selfish ambition.' Well ! one should 
laugh and be wise. But somehow one doesn't laugh. A letter beginning, 
' You are a great teacher of truth,' and ending, ' You are a dishonest 
wretch,' makes you cold somehow, and ill-disposed towards the satisfactions 
of literary distinction. Yes ! and be sure, Isa, that the ' true gods sigh,' 
and have reason to sigh, for the cost and pain of it ; sigh only . . . don't 
haggle over the cost; don't grudge a crazia, but . . . sigh, sigh . . . 
while they pay honestly. 

" On the other hand, there's much light talking and congratulation, ex- 
cellent returns to the pocket from the poem in the Cornhill ; pleasaTit 
praise from dear Mr. Trollope . . . with all drawbacks : a good opinion 
from Isa worth its gold — and Pan laughs. 

" But he is a beast up to the waist ; yes, Mr, Trollope, a beast. He is 
not a true god. 

" And I am neither god nor beast, if you please — only a Ba." 

It seems that she certainly imagined me to be the critic ; 
but must have been subsequently undeceived. I will not 
venture to say a word on the question of the marring or 
making of a man which results from the creation of a 
poet ; but if mj brother had known Mrs. Browning as 
well as I knew her, he would not have written that he 

* These dots do not indicate any hiatus. They exist in the MS. as here 
given. 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 397 

could " hardly believe that she herself believes in the 
doctrine that her fancy has led her to illustrate." At all 
events, the divine afflatus had not so marred the absolute- 
ly single-minded truthfulness of the woman in her as to 
make it possible that she should, for the sake of illustrat- 
ing, however appositely, any fancy, however brilliant, put 
forth a " doctrine " as believing in it which she did not 
believe. It may seem that this is a foolish making of a 
mountain out of a molehill ; but she would not have felt 
it to be so. She had so high a conception of the poet's 
office and responsibilities that nothing would have in- 
duced her to play at believing, for literary purposes, any 
position, or fancy, or imagination which she did not in 
her heart of hearts accept. 

There w^as one subject upon which both my wife and I 
disagreed in opinion with Mrs. Browning ; and it was a 
subject which sat very near her heart, and was much oc- 
cupying all minds at that time — the phases of Italy's 
struggle for independence, and especially the part which 
the Emperor Napoleon the Third was taking in that 
struggle, and his conduct towards Italy. We were all 
equally " Italianissimi," as the phrase went then; all 
equally desirous that Italy should accomplish the union 
of her disjecta memhra^ throw off the yoke of the bad 
governments which had oppressed her, make herself a na- 
tion, and do well as such. But we differed widely as to the 
ultimate utility, the probable results, and, above all, as to 
the motives of the emperor's conduct. Mrs. Browning 
believed in him and trusted him. We did neither. Hence 
the following interesting and curious letter, written to 
my wife at Florence by Mrs. Browning, who was passing 
the summer at Siena. Mrs. Browning felt very warmly 
upon this subject — so, indeed, did my wife, differing from 
her toto coelo upon it. But the difference not only never 
caused the slightest suspension of cordial feeling between 
them, but never caused either of them to doubt for a mo- 
ment that the other was with equal sincerity and equal 
ardor anxious for the same end. The letter was written, 
as only the postmark shows, on September 26, 1859, and 
was as follows : 



398 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

" My dear Mrs. Trollope, — I feel doubly grateful to you ... for the 
music (one of the proofs of your multiform faculty) and for your kind and 
welcome letter, which I have delayed to thank you for. My body lags so 
behind my soul always, and especially of late, that you must consider my 
disadvantages in whatever fault is committed by me, trying to forgive it. 

" Certainly we differ in our estimate of the Italian situation, while loving 
and desiring for Italy up to the same height and with the same heart. 

"For me I persist in looking to /ac/s rather than to words official or un- 
official, and in repeating that, ' whereas we were bound, now we are free.' 

" * I think, therefore I am.' Cogito, ergo sum, was, you know, an old 
formula. Italy thinks (aloud) at Florence and Bologna ; therefore she is. 
And how did that happen? Could it have happened last year, with the 
Austrians at Bologna, and ready (at a sign) to precipitate themselves into 
Tuscany ? Could it have happened previous to the French intervention ? 
And could it happen noio if France used the power she has in Italy against 
Italy ? Why is it that the Times newspaper, which declared . . . first 
that the elections were to be prevented by France, and next that they were 
to be tampered with ... is not justified before our eyes? I appeal to 
your sober judgment ... if, indeed, the Emperor Napoleon desires Ihe res- 
toration of the dukes ! ! Is he not all the more admirable for being loyal 
and holding his hand off while he has fifty thousand men ready to ' protect ' 
us all and prevent the exercise of the people's sovereignty ? And he a 
despot (so called) and accustomed to carry out his desires. Instead of 
which Tuscans and Romagnoli, Parma and Modena, have had every oppor- 
tunity allowed them to combine, carry their elections, and express their 
full minds in assemblies, till the case becomes so complicated and strength- 
ened that her enemies for the most part despair. 

"The qualities shown by the Italians — the calm, the dignity, the intelli- 
gence, the constancy ... I am as far from not understanding the weight 
of these virtues as from not admiring them. But the oj^portunity for ex- 
ercising them comes from the Emperor Napoleon, and it is good and just 
for us all to remember this while we admire the most. 

" So at least I think ; and the Italian official bodies have always admitted 
it, though individuals seem to me to be too much influenced by the suspi- 
cions and calumnies thrown out by foreign journals — English, Prussian, 
Austrian, and others — which traduce the empei'or's motives in diplomacy, 
as they traduced them in the war. A prejudice in the eye is as fatal to 
sight as mote and beam togethei-. And there are things abroad worse than 
any prejudices — yes, worse ! 

" It is a fact that the emperor used his influence with England to get the 
Tuscan vote accepted by the English government. Whatever wickedness 
he meant by that the gods know ; and English statesmen suspect ... (or 
suspected a very short time ago) ; but the deed itself is not wicked, and 
you and I shall not be severe on it whatever bad motive may be imput- 
able. 

" So much more I could write • . • about Villafranca, but I won't. The 
emperor, great man as he is, could not precisely anticipate the high quali- 
ties given proof of in the late development of Italian nationalit3\ He 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 399 

made the best terms he could, having had his hand forced. In consequence 
of this treaty he has carried out his engagement to Austria in certain offi- 
cial forms, knowing well that the free will and choice of the Italians are 
hindered by none of them ; and knowing besides that every apparent cold- 
ness and reserve of his towards the peninsula removes a jealousy from 
England, and instigates her to a more liberal and human bearing than 
formerly. 

" Forgive me for all these words. I am much better, but still not as 
strong as I was before my attack ; only getting strength, I hope. 

"Miss Blagden and Miss Field are staying still with us, and are gone to 
Siena to-day to see certain pictures (which has helped to expose you to this 
attack). We talk of returning to Florence by the first of October, or soon 
after, in spite of the revival of fine weather. Mr. Landor is surprisingly 
improved by the good air here and the repose of mind; walks two miles, 
and writes alcaics and pentameters on most days ... on his domestic 
cii'cumstances, and ... I am sorry to say . . . Louis Napoleon. But I 
tell him that I mean him to write an ode on my side of the question be- 
fore w^e have done. 

" I honor you and your husband for the good work you have both done 
on behalf of this great cause. But his book* we only know yet by the 
extracts in the Athenceiim, which brings us your excellent articles. May I 
not thank you for them ? And when does Mr. Trollope come back V 
[from a flying visit to England]. We hope not to miss him out of Flor- 
ence long. 

"Peni's love to Bice.f He has been very happy here, galloping through 
the lanes on a pony the color of his curls. Then he helps to work in the 
vineyards and to keep the sheep, having made close friends with the con- 
tadini, to whom he reads and explains Dall' Ongaro's poems with great ap- 
plause. By the way, the poet paid us a visit lately, and we liked him 
much. 

"And let me tell Bices mother another story of Penini. He keeps a 
journal, be it whispered ; I ventured to peep through the leaves the other 
morning, and came to the following notice : ' This is the happiest day of 
my hole (sic) life, because dearest Vittoria Emanuele is really nostra re P 

" There's a true Italian for you ! But his weak point is spelling. 

" Believe me, with my husband's regards, ever truly and affectionately 
yours, Elizabeth Barrett Browning." 

It may possibly enter into the mind of some one of 
those who never enjoyed the privilege of knowing Mrs. 
Browning the woman to couple together the stupidly- 
calumnious insinuations to which she refers in the first 
letter I have given with the admiration she expresses for 
the third Napoleon in the second letter. I differed from 
her wholly in her estimate of the man and in her views of 

* "Tuscany in J849 and 1859." f Browning's boy and my girl, 



400 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

his policy with regard to Italy. And many an argument 
have I had with her on the subject. And my opinions 
respecting it were all the more distasteful to her because 
they concerned the character of the man himself as well 
as his policy as a ruler. And those talks and arguments 
have left me probably the only man alive, save one, who 
knows with such certainty as I know it, and can assert as 
I can, the absolute absurdity and impossibility of the idea 
that she, being what she was, could have been bribed by 
any amount of imperial or other flattery, not only to pro- 
fess opinions which she did not veritably hold — this touch- 
es her moral nature, perhaps the most pellucidly truthful 
of any I ever knew — but to hold opinions which she would 
not have otherwise held. This touches her intellectual 
nature, which was as incapable of being mystified or mod- 
ified by any suggestion of vanity, self-love, or gratified 
pride as the most judicial-mimied judge who ever sat on 
the bench. Her intellectual view on the matter was, I 
thought, mystified and modified by the intensity of her 
love for the Italian cause and of her hatred for the evils 
from which she was watching the Italians struggling to 
liberate themselves. 

I heard, probably from herself, of whispered calumnies, 
such as those she refers to in the first of the two letters 
given. She despised them then, as those who loved and 
valued her did, though the sensitive, womanly gentleness 
of her nature made it a pain to her that any fellow-creat- 
ure, however ignorant and far away from her, should so 
think of her. And my disgust at a secret attempt to stab 
has impelled me to say what I Jcnoio on the subject. But 
I really think that not only those who knew her as she 
lived in the flesh, but the tens of thousands who know her 
as she lives in her written words, cannot but feel my vin- 
dication superfluous. 

The above long and specially interesting letter is writ- 
ten in very small characters on ten pages of extremely 
small duodecimo note-paper, as is also the other letter by 
the same writer given above. Mrs. Browning's hand- 
writing shows, ever and anon, an odd tendency to form 
each letter of a word separately — a circumstance which I 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 401 

mention for the sake of remarking that old Huntingford, 
the Bishop of Hereford, in my young days, between whom 
and Mrs. Browning there was one thing in common, name- 
ly, a love for and familiarity with Greek studies, used to 
write in the same manner. 

The Dall' Ongaro here spoken of was an old friend of 
ours — of my wife's, if I remember right — before our mar- 
riage. He was a Venetian, or, rather, to speak accurately, 
I believe, a Dalmatian by birth, but all his culture and 
sympathies were Venetian. He had in his early youth 
been destined for the priesthood, but, like many another, 
had been driven by the feelings and sympathies engen- 
dered by Italy's political struggles to abandon the tonsure 
for the sake of joining the "patriot" cause. His muse 
was of the drawing-room school and calibre. But he 
wrote very many charming little poems breathing the 
warmest aspirations of the somewhat extreme gauche of 
that day, especially some stornelli after the Tuscan fash- 
ion, which met with a very wide and warm acceptance. 
I remember one extremely happy, the refrain of which 
still runs in my head. It is written on the newly adopted 
Italian tricolor flag. After characterizing each color sep- 
arately in a couplet, he ends : 

"E il rosso, il bianco, e il verde, 
E un terno che si giuoca, e non si perde." 

The phrase is borrowed from the language of the lot- 
tery. " And the red, and the w^hite, and the green, are a 
threefold combination " [I am obliged to be horribly pro- 
saic in order to make the allusion intelligible to non-Ital- 
ian ears] "on which we may play and be sure not to 
lose !" 

I am tempted to give here another of Mrs. Browning's 
letters to my first wife, partly by the persuasion that any 
letter of hers must be a matter of interest to a very large 
portion of English readers, and partly for the sake of the 
generously appreciative criticism of one of my brother's 
books, which I also always considered to be one of his best. 
I must add that Mrs. Browning's one bit of censure coin- 
cides as perfectly with my own judgment. The letter, as 



402 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

usual, is dateless, but mast have been written very shortly 
after the publication of my brother's novel called " The 
Three Clerks." 

"My dear Mrs. Trollope, — I return 'The Three Clerks' with our true 
thanks and appreciation. We both quite agree with you in considering it 
the best of the three clever novels before the public. My husband, who 
can seldom get a novel to hold him, has been held by all three, and by 
this the strongest. Also, it has qualities which the others gave no sign 
of. For instance, I was wrung to tears by the third volume. What a 
thoroughly man's book it is ! I much admire it, only wishing away, with 
a vehemence which proves the veracity of my general admiration, the con- 
tributions to the ' Daily Delight ' — may I dare to say it ? 

" I do hope you are better. For myself, I have not suffered more than 
was absolutely necessary in the late unusual weather. 

" I heard with concern that Mrs. Trollope [my mother] has been less 
well than usual. But who can wonder, with such cold ? 

" Most truly yours, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

"Casa Guidi, Wednesday.'''' 

Here is, also, one other little memorial, written, not by 
"Elizabeth Barrett Browning," but by "Elizabeth Bar- 
rett." It is interesting on more than one account. It bears 
no date save " Beacon Terrace [Torquay], Thursday." 
But it evidently marks the beginning of acquaintanceship 
between the two exceptionally, though not equally, gift- 
ed girls, Elizabeth Barrett and Theodosia Garrow. It is 
written on a sheet of the very small duodecimo note-paper 
which she was wont to use many years subsequently, but 
in far more delicate and elegant characters than she used 
when much pen-work had produced its usual deteriorating 
effect on her caligraphy. 

"I cannot return the 'Book of Beauty' [Lady Blessington's annual] 
to Miss Garrow without thanking her for allowing me to read in it soonei' 
than I should otherwise have done those contributions of her own which 
help to justify its title, and which are indeed sweet and touching verses. 

" It is among the vexations brought upon me by my illness that I still 
remain personally unacquainted with Miss Garrow, though seeming to my- 
self to know her through those who actually do so. And I should venture 
to hope that it might be a vexation the first to leave me, if a visit to an 
invalid condemned to the peine forte et dure of being very silent, notwith- 
standing her womanhood, were a less gloomy thing. At any rate, I am 
encouraged to thank Miss Fisher and Miss Garrow for their visits of re- 
peated inquiry, and their other very kind attentions, by these written 
words rather than bv a message. For I am sure that wherever kindness 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 403 

can come thankfulness may, aad that whatever intrusion my note can be 
guilty of, it is excusable by the fact of my being Miss Garrow's 

" Sincerely obliged, E. Barrett." 

Could anything be more charmingly girlish or more 
prettily worded? The diminutive little note seems to 
have been preserved, an almost solitary survival of the 
memorials of the days to which it belongs. It must doubt- 
less have been followed by sundry others, but was, I sup- 
pose, specially treasured as having been the first step tow- 
ards a friendship which was already highly valued. 

Of course, in the recollections of an Englishman living 
during those years in Florence, Robert Browning must 
necessarily stand out in high relief and in the foremost 
line. But very obviously this is neither the time nor the 
place, nor is my dose of presumption sufficient, for any 
attempt at a delineation of the man. To speak of the 
poet, since I write for Englishmen, would be very super- 
fluous. It may be readily imagined that the " tag-rag and 
bob-tail" of the men who mainly constituted that very 
pleasant, but not very intellectual society, were not likely 
to be such as Mr. Browning would readily make intimates 
of. And I think I see, in memory's magic glass, that the 
men used to be rather afraid of him. Not that I ever 
saw him rough or uncourteous with the most exasperating 
fool that ever rubbed a man's nervous system the wrong 
way, but there was a quiet, lurking smile which, support- 
ed by very few words, used to seem to have the singular 
property of making the utterers of platitudes and the mis- 
takers of non-sequiturs for sequiturs uncomfortably aware 
of the nature of their words within a very few minutes 
after they had uttered them. I may say, however, that I 
believe that, in any dispute on any sort of subject between 
any two men in the place, if it had been proposed to sub- 
mit the matter in dispute for adjudication to Mr. Brown- 
ing, the proposal would have been jumped at with a greater 
readiness of consensus than in the case of any other man 
there. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE. 

The Italians, I believe, were "thinking" at a consider- 
ably earlier period than that which, in the second letter, 
transcribed in the preceding chapter, Mrs. Browning seems 
to have considered as the beginning of their " cogitating" 
existence, and thinking on the subjects to which she is 
there adverting. They were "thinking," perhaps, less in 
Tuscany than in any other part of the peninsula, for they 
were eating more and better there. They were very lightly 
taxed. The mezzeria system of agriculture, which, if not 
absolutely the same, is extremely similar to that which is 
known as " conacre," rendered the lot of the peasant pop- 
ulation very far better and more prosperous than that of 
the tillers of the earth in any of the other provinces. And, 
upon the whole, the people were contented. The Tuscan 
public was certainly not a "pensive public." They ate 
their bread not without due condiment of compagnati- 
co^ or even their chestnuts in the more remote and primi- 
tive mountain districts, drank their sound Tuscan wine 
from the generous, big-bellied Tuscan flasks, holding three 
good bottles, and sang their stornelli in cheerfulness of 
.heart, and had no craving whatsoever for those few spe- 
cial liberties which were denied them. 

Epicuri de grege porci ! No progress ! Yes, I know 
all that, and am not saying what should have been, but 
what was. There was no progress. The contadini on the 
little farm which I came to possess before I left Tuscany 
cultivated it precisely after the fashion of their grand- 
fathers and great-grandfathers, and strenuously resisted 
any suggestion that it could, should, or might be cultivated 

* Anything to make the bread " go down," as our people say — a morsel 
of bacon or sausage, a handful of figs or grapes, or a bit of cheese. 



REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE. 405 

in any other way. But my contadino inhabited a large 
and roomy casa colonica ; he and his buxom wife had six 
stalwart sons, and was the richer man in consequence of 
having them. No, in my early Florentine days the co- 
gito, ergo surtiy could not have been predicated of the Tus- 
cans. 

But the condition of things in the other states of the 
peninsula, in Venice and Lombardy under the Austrians, 
in Naples under the Bourbon kings, in Romagna under 
the pope, and very specially in Modena under its dukes of 
the House of Este, was much otherwise. In those regions 
the Italians were "thinking" a great deal, and had been 
thinking for some time past. And somewhere about 1849, 
those troublesome members of the body social who are 
not contented with eating, drinking, and singing — cantank- 
erous reading and writing people living in towns, who 
wanted most unreasonably to say, as the phrase goes, that 
" their souls were their own " (as if such fee-simple rights 
ever fall to the lot of any man !) — began in Tuscany to 
give signs that they also were "thinking." 

I remember well that Alberi, the highly accomplished 
and learned editor of the " Reports of the Venetian Am- 
bassadors," and of the great edition of Galileo's works, was 
the first man who opened my altogether innocent eyes to 
the fact that the revolutionary leaven was working in 
Tuscany, and that there were social breakers ahead. This 
must have been as early as 1845, or possibly 1844. Al- 
beri himself was a Throne-and-Altar man, who thought, 
for his part, that the amount of proprietorship over his 
own soul which the existing regime allowed him was 
enough for his purposes. But, as he confided to me, a very 
strong current of opinion was beginning to run the other 
way in Florence, in Leghorn, in Lucca, and many smaller 
cities — not in Siena, which always was, and is still, a nest 
of conservative feeling. 

Nevertheless there never was, at least in Florence, the 
strength and bitterness of revolutionary feeling that exist- 
ed almost everywhere else throughout Italy. I remember 
a scene which furnished a very remarkable proof of this, 
and which was at the same time very curiously and signifi- 



406 



WHAT I REMEMBER. 



cantly characteristic of the Florentine character, at least 
as it then existed. 

It was during the time of the Austrian occupation of 
Florence. On the whole the Austrian troops behaved 
well ; and their doings, and the spirit in which the job they 
had in hand was carried out, were very favorably con- 
trasted with the tyranny, the insults, and the aggressive 
arrogance with which the French army of occupation 
afflicted the Romans. The Austrians accordingly were 
never hated in Florence with the bitter intensity of hate 
which the French earned in the Eternal City. Neverthe- 
less, there were now and then occasions when the Floren- 
tine populace gratified their love of a holiday and testified 
to the purity of their Italian patriotism by turning out 
into the streets and kicking up a row. 

It was on an occasion of this sort that the narrow street 
called Por' Santa Maria, which runs up from the Ponte 
Vecchio to the Piazza, was thickly crowded with people. 
A young lieutenant had been sent to that part of the town 
with a small detachment of cavalry to clear the streets. 
Judging from the aspect of the people, as his men, coming 
down the Lung' Arno, turned into the narrow street, he 
did not half like the job before him. He thought there 
certainly would be bloodshed. And just as his men were 
turning the corner and beginning to push their horses into 
the crowd, one of them slipped sideways on the flagstones, 
with which, most distressingly to horses not used to them, 
the streets of Florence are paved, and came down with 
his rider partly under him. 

The officer thought, "Now for trouble ! That man will 
be killed to a certainty." The crowd — who were filling 
the air with shouts of " Morte .^" " Ahhasso r Austria /" 
^'Morte agli AustriaciP^* — crowded round the fallen 
trooper, while the officer tried to push forward towards 
the spot. But when he got within earshot, and could see 
also what was taking place, he saw the people immediate- 
ly round the fallen man busily disengaging him from his 
horse. ^' poveritio / Ti sei fatto male? Orsu! JVofi 

* " Death !" " Down with Austria !" *' Death to the Austrians !" 



REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE. 407 

saraniente! Su! A cavallo,ehf^^ And having helped 
the man to remount, they returned to their amusement of 
^^3Iorte agli Austriaci /" The young officer perceived that 
he had a very different sort of populace to deal with trom 
an angry crowd on the other side of the Alps, or indeed 
on the other side of the Apennines. 

I remember another circumstance which occurred a few 
years previously to that just mentioned, and which was 
in its way equally characteristic. In one of the principal 
cafes of Florence, situated on the Piazza del Diiomo — the 
cathedral yard — a murder was committed. The deed was 
done in full daylight, when the cafe was full of people. 
Such crimes, and indeed violent crimes of any sort, were 
exceedingly rare in Florence. That in question was com- 
mitted by stabbing, and the motive of the criminal, who 
had come to Florence for the express purpose of killing 
his enemy, w^as vengeance for a great wrong. Having ac- 
complished his purpose, he quietly walked out of the cafe 
and went away. I happened to be on the spot shortly 
afterwards, and inquired, with some surprise at the escape 
of the murderer, why he had not been arrested red-handed. 
" He had a sword in his hand !" said the person to whom 
I had addressed myself, in a tone w^hich implied that that 
quite settled the matter — that of course it was absolutely 
out of the question to attempt to interfere with a man 
who had a sword in his hand ! 

It is a very singular thing, and one for which it is diffi- 
cult to offer any satisfactory explanation, that the change 
in Florence in respect to the prevalence of crime has been 
of late years very great indeed. I have mentioned more 
than once, I think, the very remarkable absence of all 
crimes of violence which characterized Florence in the 
earlier time of my residence there. It was not due to 
rigorous repression or vigilance of the police, as may be 
partly judged by the above anecdote. There was, in fact, 
no police that merited the name. But anything in the 
nature of burglary was unheard of. The streets were so 

* " Oh, poor fellow ! Have you hurt yourself ? Up with you ! It will 
be nothing ! Up ! Again on your horse, eh ?" 



408 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

absolutely safe that any lady might have traversed them 
alone at any hour of the day or night. And I might add 
to the term " crimes of violence " the further statement 
that pocket-picking was equally unheard of. 

JS^ow there is perhaps more crime of a heinous character 
in Florence, in proportion to the population, than in any 
city in the peninsula. I think that about the first indica- 
tion that all that glittered in the mansuetude of Firenze 
la Gentile was not gold showed itself on the occasion of 
an attempt to naturalize at Florence the traditional sport- 
iveness of the Roman Carnival. There and then, as all 
the world knows, it has been the immemorial habit for 
the population, high and low, to pelt the folks in the car- 
riages during their Corso procession with bonbons, bou- 
quets, and the like. Gradually at Rome this exquisite 
fooling has degenerated under the influence of modern no- 
tions till the bouquets having become cabbage stalks, very 
effective as offensive missiles, and the bonbons plaster-of- 
Paris pellets, with an accompanying substitution of a 
spiteful desire to inflict injury for the old horse-play, it 
has become necessary to limit the duration of the Satur- 
nalia to the briefest span, with the sure prospect of its 
being very shortly altogether prohibited. But at Flor- 
ence on the first occasion, now several years ago, of an 
attempt to imitate the Roman practice, the conduct of 
the populace was such as to demand imperatively the im- 
mediate suppression of it. The carriages and the occu- 
pants of them were attacked by such volleys of stones 
and mud, and the animus of the people was so evidently 
malevolent and dangerous, that they were at once driven 
from the scene, and any repetition of the practice was for- 
bidden. 

It is so remarkable as to be, at all events, worth noting, 
that contemporaneously with this singular deterioration 
in respect to crime, another social change has taken place 
in Florence. La Gentile Fire^ize has of late years be- 
come very markedly the home of clericalism of a high and 
aggressive type. This is an entirely new feature in the 
Florentine social world. In the old time clerical vicAvs 
were sufiiciently supported by the government to give 



REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE. 409 

rise to the famous Madiai incident, which has been before 
alluded to. But clericalism in its more aggressive aspects 
was not in the ascendant either bureaucratically or social- 
ly. The spirit which had informed the policy and gov- 
ernment of the famous Leopoldine laws was still suffi- 
ciently alive in the mental habitudes of both governors and 
governed to render Tuscany a rather suspected and dis- 
liked region in the mind of the Vatican and of the secular 
governments which sympathized with the Vatican's views 
and sentiments. The change that has taken place is there- 
fore a very notable one. I have no such sufficiently inti- 
mate knowledge of the subject as would justify me in link- 
ing together the two changes I have noticed in the con- 
nection of cause and effect. I only note the synchronism. 

On the other hand there are not wanting sociologists 
who maintain that the cause of the outburst of lawless- 
ness and crime which has undeniably characterized Flor- 
ence of late years is to be sought for exactly in that old- 
time, easy-going tolerance in religious matters which they 
say is now producing a tardy but sure crop from seeds 
that, however long in disclosing the true nature of the 
harvest to be expected from them, ought never to have 
been expected by wise legislators to produce any other. 

Noil nostrum est tantas componere lites! But Florence 
is certainly no longer Firenze la Gentile, as she so emi- 
nently was in the days when I knew her so well. 

When any of the other cities of Italy have in any degree 
ceased to merit the traditional epithets which so many 
successive generations assigned to them — how far Genoa 
is still la Superba, Bologna la Grassa, Padua la Dotta, 
Lucca la Industriosa — I cannot say. Venezia is unques- 
tionably still la Bella. And as for old Rome, she vindi- 
cates more than ever her title to the epithet Eterna, by 
her similitude to those nursery toys which, throw them 
about as you will, still with infallible certitude come down 
heads uppermost. 

As for the Florence of my old recollections, there were 
in the early days of them many little old-world sights and 
sounds which are to be seen and heard no longer, and 
which differentiated the place from other social centres. 
18 



410 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

I remember a striking incident of this sort which hap- 
pened to my mother and myself " in the days before the 
flood," therefore very shortly after our arrival there. 

It was the practice in those days to carry the bodies of 
the dead on open biers, with uncovered faces, to their burial. 
It had doubtless been customary in old times so to carry 
all the dead ; but the custom was retained at the time 
of which I am writing only in the case of distinguished 
persons, and very generally of the priesthood. I remem- 
ber, for instance, a poor little humpbacked grand duchess 
being so carried through the street magnificently be- 
decked as if she were going to a ball, and with painted 
cheeks. She had been a beneficent little body, and the 
people, as far as they knew anything about her, revered 
her, and looked on her last presentation to them with sym- 
pathetic feelings. But it was a sorry sight to see the poor 
little body, looking much like a bedizened monkey, so 
paraded. 

Well, my mother and I were, aimlessly but much admir- 
ingly, wandering about the vast spaces of the cathedral 
when we became aware of 2^funzione of some sort — a ser- 
vice as we should say — being conducted in a far part of 
the building. There was no great crowd, but a score or 
two of spectators, mainly belonging to the gamin category, 
were standing around the officiating priests and curiously 
looking on. We went towards the spot, and found that 
the burial service was being performed over the body of a 
young priest. The body lay on its back on the open bier, 
clad in full canonicals and with the long tasselled cap of the 
secular clergy on his head. We stood and gazed with the 
others, when suddenly I saw the dead man's head slightly 
move ! A shiver, I confess, ran through me. A moment's 
reflection, however, reminded me of the recognized deceit- 
fulness of the eyes in such matters, and I did not doubt 
that I had been mistaken. But the next minute I again 
saw the dead priest slightly shake his head, and this time 
I was sure that I was not mistaken. I clutched ray moth- 
er's arm and pointed, and again saw the awful phenomenon, 
which sent a cold wave through both of us from head to 
foot. But nobody save ourselves seemed to have seen 



REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE. 411 

anything unusual. The service was proceeding in its 
wonted order. Doubting whether it might possibly be 
one of those horrible cases of suspended animation and 
mistaken death, I was thinking whether it were not my 
duty to call attention to the startling thing we had seen, 
and had with outstretched neck and peering eyes advanced 
a step for further observation, and with the half-formed 
purpose of declaring aloud that the man was not dead, 
when I spied crouched beneath the bier a little monkey, 
some nine or ten years old, who had taken in his hand the 
tassel of the cap, which hung down between the wooden 
bars which formed the bier, and was amusing himself with 
slowly swaying it forward and backward, and had thus 
communicated the motion to the dead man's head ! It 
was almost impossible to believe that the little urchin had 
been able to reach the position he occupied without hav- 
ing been observed by anj^ of the clerical attendants, of 
whom several were present, and still more difficult to sup- 
pose that no one of them had seen what we saw, standing 
immediately in front of the corpse while one of them per- 
formed the rite of lustration with holy water, the vessel 
containing which was held by another. But no one inter- 
fered, and none but those who know the Florentines as 
well as I know them can feel how curiously and intensely 
characteristic of them was the fact that no one did so. 
The awful reverence for death which would have impelled 
an Englishman of almost any social position to feel in- 
dignation and instantly put a stop to what he would con- 
sider a profanation, was absolutely unknown to all those 
engaged in that perfunctory rite. A certain amount of 
trouble and disturbance would have been caused by dis- 
lodging the culprit, and each man there felt only this ; 
that it didn't matter a straw, and that there was no reason 
for Mm to take the trouble of noticing it. As far as I 
could observe, the amusement the little wretch derived 
from his performance was entirely unsocial, and confined 
to his own breast ; for I could not see that any of the 
gamin fraternity noticed it, or cared about it, any more 
than their seniors. 

I remember another somewhat analogous adventure of 



412 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

mine, equally illustrative of the Florentine habits of those 
days. I saw a man suddenly stagger and fall in the street. 
It was in the afternoon, and there were many persons in 
the street, some of them nearer to the fallen man than I 
was, but nobody attempted to help him. I stepped for- 
ward to do so, and was about to take hold of him and try 
to raise him, when one of the bystanders eagerly caught 
me by the arm, saying, " He is dying, he is dying !" " Let 
us try to raise him," said I, still pressing forward. " You 
mustn't, you mustn't ! It is not permitted," he added, as 
he perceived that he was speaking to a foreigner, and then 
went on to explain to me that what must be done was to 
call the Misericordia, for which purpose one must run and 
ring a certain bell attached to the chaj)el of that brother- 
hood in the Piazza del Duomo. 

Among the many things that have been written of the 
Florentine Misericordia, I do not think that I have met 
with the statement that it used to be universally believed 
in Florence that the law gave the black brethren the privi- 
lege and the monopoly of picking up any dying or dead 
person in the streets, and that it was forbidden to any one 
else to do so. Whether any such laio really existed I much 
doubt, but the custom of acting in accordance with it, and 
the belief that such practice was imperative, undoubtedly 
did. And I have no doubt that many a life has been 
sacrificed to it. The half-hour or twenty minutes which 
necessarily elapsed before the Misericordia could be called 
and answer the call must often have been supremely im- 
portant, and in many cases ought to have been employed 
in the judicious use of the lancet. 

The sight of the black-robed and black-cowled brethren, 
as they went about the streets on their errands of mercy, 
was common enough in Florence. But the holiday visitor 
had very little opportunity of hearing anything of the in- 
ternal management and rules of that peculiar mediaeval 
society or of the nature of the work it did. 

The Florentine Misericordia was founded in the days 
when pestilence was ravaging the city so fiercely that the 
dead lay uncared for in the streets, because there was no 
man sufficiently courageous to bury or to touch them. 



REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE. 



413 



The members of the association, which was formed for the 
performance of this charitable and arduous duty, chose 
for themselves a costume the object of which was the ab- 
solute concealment of the individual performing it. A 
loose black linen gown drapes the figure from the neck 
to the heels, and a black cowl, with two holes cut for the 
eyes, covers and effectually conceals the head and face. 
For more than five hundred years, up to the present day, 
the dress remains the same, and no human being, either of 
those to whom their services are rendered, or of the thou- 
sands who see them going about in the performance of 
their self-imposed duty, can know whether the mysterious 
weird-looking figure he sees be prince or peasant. He 
knows that he may be either, for the members of the 
brotherhood are drawn from all classes of society. 

It used to be whispered, and I have good reasons for be- 
lieving the whisper to have been true, that the late grand 
duke was a member, and took his turn of duty with his 
brethren. Some indiscreet personal attendant blabbed the 
secret, for assuredly the duke himself was never untrue to 
the oath which binds the members to secrecy. 

The whole society is divided into a number of com- 
panies, one of which is by turns on duty. There is a large, 
most melancholy, and ominously sounding bell in the 
chapel of the brotherhood (not that already mentioned 
by which anybody can call the attention of the brother in 
permanent attendance, but a much larger one), which is 
heard all over the city. This summons the immediate 
attendance of every member of the company on duty, and 
the mysterious black figures may any day be seen hurry- 
ing to the rendezvous. There they learn the nature of the 
call, and the place at which their presence is required. 

I remember the case of an English girl who was fear- 
fully burned at a villa at some little distance from the city. 
The injuries were so severe that, while it was extremely 
desirable that she should be removed to a hospital, there 
was much doubt as to the possibility of moving her. In 
this difticulty the Misericordia were summoned. They 
came, five or six of them, bringing with them their too 
well-known black-covered litter, and transported the pa- 



414 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

tient to the hospital, lifting her from her bed and placing 
her in the litter with an exquisitely delicate and skilled 
gentleness of handling which spared her suffering to the 
utmost, and excited the surprise and admiration of the 
English medical man who witnessed the operation. Every 
part of the work, every movement, was executed in ab- 
solute silence and with combined obedience to signalled 
orders from the leader of the company. 

Another case which was brought under my notice was 
that of a woman suffering from dropsy, which made the 
necessary removal of her a very arduous and difficult 
operation. It would probably have been deemed impos- 
sible save by the assistance of the Misericordia, who man- 
aged so f eatly and deftly that those who saw it marvelled 
at the skill and accurately co-operating force, which noth- 
ing but long practice could have made possible. 

It is a law of the brotherhood, never broken, that they 
are to accept nothing, not so much as a glass of water, in 
any house to which they are called. The Florentines well 
know how much they owe as a community, and how much 
each man may some day come to owe personally to the 
Misericordia; and when the doleful clang of their well- 
known bell is heard booming over the city, women may 
be seen to cross themselves with a muttered prayer, while 
men, ashamed of their religiosity, but moved by feeling 
as well as habit, will furtively do the same. 

There is an association at Rome copied from that at 
Florence, and vowed to the performance of very similar 
duties. I once had an opportunity of seeing the registers 
of this Roman Misericordia, and was much impressed by 
the frequently recurring entry of excursions into the Cam- 
pagna to bring in the corpses of men murdered and left 
there ! 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE — Continued. 

Among the other things that contributed to make those 
Florence cla5^s very pleasant ones, we did a good deal in 
the way of private theatricals. Our impresario^ at least 
in the earlier part of the time, was Arthur Vansittart. He 
engaged the Cocomero Theatre for our performances, and 
to the best of my remembrance defrayed the whole of the 
expense out of his own pocket. Yansittart was an excep- 
tionally tall man, a thread-paper of a man, and a very bad 
actor. He was exceedingly noisy, and pushed vivacity to 
its extreme limits. I remember well his appearance in 
some play — I fancy it was in "The Road to Ruin," in 
which I represented some character, I entirely forget what 
— where he comes on with a four-in-hand whip in his hand ; 
and I remember, too, that for the other performers in that 
piece, their appearance on the stage was a service of dan- 
ger, from which the occupants of the stage-boxes w^ere 
not entirely free. But he was inexhaustibly good-natured 
and good-humored, and gave us excellent suppers after the 
performance. 

Then there was Edward Hobhouse, with — more or less 
with — his exceedingly pretty and clever wife, and her sis- 
ter, the not at all pretty but still more clever and very 
witty Miss Graves. Hobhouse was a man abounding in 
talent of all sorts, extremely witty, brimful of humor, a 
thorough good fellow, and very popular. He and his wife, 
though very good friends, did not entirely pull together ; 
and it used to be told of him that, replying to a man who 
asked him "How's your wife?" he answered, with much 
humorous semblance of indignation, " Well, if you come 
to that, how's yours ?" Hobhouse was far and away the 
cleverest and best-educated man of the little set (these 
dramatic reminiscences refer to the early years of my 



416 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

Florence life), and, in truth, was somewhat regrettably 
wasted in the midst of such a frivolous and idle commu- 
nity. But I take it that he was much of an invalid. 

Of course we got up "The Rivals." I was at first Bob 
Acres, with an Irishman of the name of Torrens for my 
Sir Lucius, which he acted, when we could succeed in 
keeping him sober, to the life. My Bob Acres was not 
much of a success. And I subsequently took Sir Anthony, 
which remained my stock part for years, and which I was 
considered to do well. 

Sir Francis Vincent, a resident in Florence for many 
years, with whom I was for several of them very intimate, 
played the ungrateful part of Falkland. He was a heavy 
actor with fairly good elocution and delivery, and not un- 
fitted for a part which it might have been difficult to fill 
without him. He was to a great degree a reading man, 
and had a considerable knowledge of the byw^ays of Flor- 
entine history. 

My mother "brought the house down" nightly as Mrs. 
Malaprop; and a very exceptionally beautiful Madame de 
Parcieu (an Englishwoman married to a Frenchman) was, 
in appearance, manih^e cVetre, and deportment, the verita- 
ble beau ideal of Lydia Languish, and might have made a 
furore on any stage, if it had been possible to induce her 
to raise her voice sufficiently. She was most good-nat- 
uredly amenable. But when she was thus driven against 
her nature and habits to speak out, all the excellence of 
her acting was gone. The meaning of the words was 
taken out of them. 

Sir Anthony Absolute became, as I said, my stock part. 
And the phrase is justified by my having acted it many 
years afterwards in a totally different company — I the 
only remaining brick of the old edifice — and to audiences 
not one of w^hom could have witnessed the performances 
of those earlier days. Mrs. Richie, an American lady — 
who had, T think, been known on a London stage under the 
name of " Mowatt " — was in those latter days, now so far 
away in the dim past, our manageress. Mrs. Proby, the 
wife — now, I am sorry to say, the widow — of the British 
consul, was on that occasion our Mrs. Malaprop, and was 



REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE. 417 

an excellent representative of that popular lady, .though 
she will, I am sure, forgive me for saying not so perfect a 
one as my mother. 

Quite indescribably strange is the effect on my mind of 
looking back at my three Thespian avatars — Falstaff at 
Cincinnati, Acres and Sir Anthony in Grand Ducal Flor- 
ence, and Sir Anthony again in a liberated Tuscany. I 
seem to myself like some old mail-coach guard, who goes 
through the whole long journey, while successive coach- 
men "Leave you here, sir?" But then in my case the 
passengers are all changed too ; and I arrive at the end of 
the journey without one " inside " or " outside " of those 
who started with me. I can still blow my horn cheerily, 
however, and chat with the passengers who joined the 
coach w^hen my journey w^as half done as if they were 
quite old fellow-travellers. 

It must not be imagined, however, that that pleasant 
life at Florence w^as all cakes and ale. 

I was, upon the whole, a hard worker. I wrote a series 
of volumes on various portions of Italian, and especially 
Florentine history, beginning with ^' The Girlhood of 
Catharine de' Medici." They were all fairly well received, 
the "Life of Filippo Strozzi" perhaps the more so. But 
the volume on the story of the great quarrel between the 
Papacy and Venice, entitled " Paul the Pope and Paul the 
Friar," was, I think, the best. The volumes entitled " A 
Decade of Italian Women," and dealing with ten typical 
historic female figures, has attained, I believe, to some 
share of public favor. I see it not unfrequently quoted 
by writers on Italian subjects. Then I made a more am- 
bitious attempt, and produced a " History of the Common- 
wealth of Florence," in four volumes. 

Such a work appeals, of course, to a comparatively limited 
audience. But that it was recognized to have some value 
among certain Anglo-Saxons whose favorable judgment 
in the matter was worth having, may be gathered from the 
fact that it has been a text-book in our own and in trans- 
atlantic universities ; while a verdict perhaps still more 
flattering (though I will not say more gratifying) was 
given by Professor Pasquale Villari (noAv^ senator of the 
18* 



418 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

kingdom of Italy), who, in a letter in my possession, pro- 
nounces my history of Florence to be in his opinion the 
best work on the subject extant. 

Professor Villari is not only an accomplished scholar of 
a wide range of culture, but his praise of any work on 
Italian — and perhaps especially on Tuscan — history comes 
from no " prentice han'." His masterly " Life of Macchia- 
velli" is as well known in our country as in his own, 
through the translation of it into English by his gifted 
wife, Linda Villari, whilom Linda White, and my very 
valued friend. All these historical books were written 
con amove. The study of bygone Florentines had an in- 
terest for me which was quickened by the daily and hour- 
ly study of living Florentines. It was curious to mark in 
them resemblances of character, temperament, idiosyn- 
crasy, defects, and merits to those of their forefathers 
who move and breathe before us in the pages of such old 
chroniclers as Villani, Segni, Varchi, and the rest, and in 
sundry fire-graven strophes and lines of their mighty poet. 
Dante's own local and limited characteristics, as distin- 
guished from the universality of his poetic genius, have 
always seemed to me quintessentially Tuscan. 

Of course it is among the lower" orders that such traits 
are chiefly found, and among the lower orders in the coun- 
try more than those in the towns. But there is, or was, 
for I speak of years ago, a considerable conservative pride 
in their own inherited customs and traditions common to 
all classes. 

Especially this is perceived in the speech of the genuine 
Florentine. Quaint proverbs, not always of scrupulous 
refinement, old-world phrases, local allusions, are stuffed 
into the conversation of your real citizen or citizeness of 
Firenze la Gentile as thickly as the beads in the vezzo 
di corallo on the neck of a contadina. And, above all, the 
accent — the soft (not to say slobbering) c and g, and the 
guttural aspirate which turns casa into hasa and capitale 
into hapitale, and so forth — this is cherished with peculiar 
fondness. I have heard a young, elegant, and accomplished 
woman discourse in very choice Italian with the accent of 
a market-woman, and, on being remonstrated with for the 



REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE. 41 9 

use of some very pungent proverbial illustration in her 
talk, she replied with conviction, " That is the right way 
to speak Tuscan. I have nothing to do with what Ital- 
ians from other provinces may prefer. But pure, racy 
Tuscan — the Tuscan tongue that we have inherited — is 
spoken as I speak it — or ought to be !" 

I had gathered together, partly for my own pleasure, 
and partly in the course of historical researches, a valu- 
able collection of works on Storia Patria, which were 
sold by me when I gave up my house there. The reading 
of Italian, even very crabbed and ancient Italian which 
might have puzzled more than one " elegant scholar," be- 
came quite easy and familiar to me, but I have never 
attained a colloquial mastery over the language. I can 
talk, to be sure, with the most incorrect fluency, and I can 
make myself understood — at all events by Italians, whose 
quick, sympathetic apprehension of one's meaning, and 
courteous readiness to assist a foreigner in any linguistic 
straits, are deserving of grateful recognition from all of us 
who, however involuntarily, maltreat their beautiful lan- 
guage. 

But the colloquial use of a language must be acquired 
when the organs are young and lissom. I began too late. 
And,besides, I have labored under the great disadvantage 
that my deafness prevents me from sharing in the hourly 
lessons which those who hear all that is going on around 
them profit by. 

Besides the above-mentioned historical works, I wrote 
well-nigh a score, I think, of novels, which also had no 
great, but a fair, share of success. The majority of them 
are on Italian subjects ; and these, if I may be allowed to 
say so, are good. The pictures they give of Italian men 
and women, and things and habits, are true, vivid, and ac- 
curate. Those which I wrote on English subjects are un- 
questionably bad. I had been living the best part of a 
lifetime out of England ; I knew but little comparatively 
of English life, and I had no business to meddle with such 
subjects. But, besides all this, I was always writing in 
periodical publications of all sorts, English and American, 
to such an extent that I should think the bulk of it, if 



420 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

brought together, would exceed that of all the many vol- 
umes I am answerable for. No, my life in that Castle 
of Indolence — Italy — was not 2^, far-niente one. 

We were great at picnics in those Florence days. Per- 
haps the most favorite place of all for such parties was 
Pratolino, a park belonging to the grand duke, about 
seven miles from Florence, on the Bologna road. These 
seven miles wave almost all more or less up hill, and when 
the high ground on which the park is situated has been 
reached, there is a magnificent view over the Val d' Arno, 
its thousand villas, and Florence, with its circle of sur- 
rounding hills. 

There was once a grand-ducal residence there, which 
was famous in the later Medicean days for the multiplic- 
ity and ingenuity of its water-works. All kinds of sur- 
prises, picturesque and grotesque effects, and practical 
jokes, had been prepared by the ingenious but somewhat 
childish skill of the architect. Turning the handle of a 
door would produce a shower-bath, sofas would become 
suddenly boats surrounded by water, and such-like more 
or less disagreeable surprises to visitors, who were new to 
the specialties of the place. But all this practical joking 
was at length fatal to the scene of it. The pipes and 
conduits got out of order, and eventually so ruined the 
edifice that it had to be taken down, and has never been 
replaced. 

But the principal object of attraction — besides the view, 
the charming green turf for dining on, the facility for get- 
ting hot water, plates, glasses, etc., from a gardener's house, 
and a large hall in the same, good for dancing — was the 
singular colossal figure, representing " The Apennine," 
said to have been designed by Michael Angelo. One used 
to clamber up inside this figure, which sits in a half crouch- 
ing attitude, and reach on the top of the head a platform, 
on which four or five persons could stand and admire the 
matchless view. 

About three miles farther, still always ascending the 
slope of the Apennine, is a Servite monastery which is the 
cradle and mother establishment of the order. Sometimes 
we used to extend our rambles thither. The brethren had 



REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE. 421 

the reputation, I remember, of possessing a large and val- 
uable collection of prints. They were not very willing to 
exhibit it ; but I did once succeed in examining it, and, as 
I remember, found that it contained nothing much worth 
looking at. 

A much more favorite amusement of mine was a picnic 
arranged to last for two or three days, and intended to em- 
brace objects farther afield. Yallombrosa was a favorite 
and admirably well-selected locality for this purpose. And 
many a day and moonlight night never to be forgotten 
have I spent there. Sometimes we pushed our expeditions 
to the more distant convents — or " sanctuaries," as they 
were called — of Camaldoli and La Vernia. And of one 
very memorable excursion to these two places I shall have 
to speak in a subsequent chapter. 

Meantime those dull mutterings as of distant thunder, 
which Signor Alberi had, as mentioned at a former page, 
first signalized to me, were gradually growing into a roar 
which was attracting the attention and lively interest of 
all Europe. 

Of the steady increase in the volume of this roar, and 
of the results in which it eventuated, I need say little 
here, for I have already said enough in a volume entitled 
"Tuscany in 1849 and in 1859." But I may jot down a 
few recollections of the culminating day of the Florentine 
revolution. 

I had been out from an early hour of that morning, and 
had assisted at sundry street discussions of the question, 
What would the troops do ? Such troops as were in Flor- 
ence were mainly lodged in the forts, the Fortezza da 
Basso, which I have had occasion to mention in a former 
chapter, and the other situated on the high ground beyond 
the Boboli Gardens, and therefore immediately above the 
Pitti Palace. My house at the corner of the large square, 
now the Piazza dell' Indipendenza, was almost immediately 
under the walls and the guns of the Fortezza da Basso ; 
but I felt sure that the troops would simply do nothing ; 
might very possibly fraternize with the people, but would 
in no case burn a cartridge for the purpose of keeping the 
grand duke on his throne. 



422 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

A short, wide street runs in a straight line from the 
middle of one side of the Piazza to the fort ; and a consid- 
erable crowd of people, at about ten o'clock, I think, be- 
gan to advance slowly up this street towards the fortezza-f 
and I went with them. High above our heads, on the 
turf-covered top of the lofty wall, there were a good num- 
ber, perhaps thirty or forty soldiers, not drawn up in line, 
but apparently merely lounging, and enjoying the air and 
sunshine. They had, I think all of them, their muskets 
in their hands, but held them idly and with apparently no 
thought whatever of using them. I felt confirmed in my 
opinion that they had no intention of doing so. 

Arrived at the foot of the fortress wall, the foremost of 
the people began calling out to the soldiers, ^' Abbasso 
V Austria! Siete per Italia o per V Austria .^" I did not 
— and it is significant — hear any cries of ^^ Abbasso il 
Gran DucaP'' The soldiers, as far as I could see at that 
distance, appeared to be lazily laughing at the people. 
One man called out, " Ecco un bel muro per fracassare il 
capo contro /" — " That is an excellent wall to break your 
heads against !" It was very plain that they had no in- 
tention of making any hostile demonstration against the 
crowd. At the same time there was no sort of manifesta- 
tion of any inclination to fraternize with the revolution- 
ists. They were simply waiting to see how matters would 
go ; and, under the circumstances, they can hardly be se- 
verely blamed for doing so. But there can be no doubt 
that, whichever way things might go, their view of the 
matter would be strongly influenced by the very decided 
opinion that that course would be best w^hich should not 
imply the necessity for doing anything. I think that the 
feeling generally in " the army," if such it could be called, 
was on the whole kindly to the grand duke, but not to the 
extent of being willing to fight anybody, least of all the 
Florentines, in his defence ! 

How matters did go it is not necessary to tell here. If 
ever there was a revolution " made with rose-water," it 
was the revolution which deposed the poor gran ciuco. I 
don't think it cost any human being in all Florence a 
scratch or a bloody nose. It cost an enormous amount of 



REMINISCENCES AT FLORENCE. 423 

talking and screaming, but nothing else. At the same 
time it is fair to remember that the popular leaders could 
not be sure that matters might not have taken another 
turn, and that it might have gone hard with some of them. 
In any case, however, it would not have gone very hard 
with any of them. Probably exile would have been the 
worst fate meted out to them. It is true that exile from 
Tuscany just then would have been attended by a similar 
difficulty to that which caused the old Scotch lad}^, w^hen 
urged to run during an earthquake, to repl}^, " Ay, but 
whar wull I run to ?" 

I do not think there was any bitter, or much even un- 
kind, feeling on the part of the citizens towards the sover- 
eign against whom they rebelled. If any fact or circum- 
stance could be found which was calculated to hold him 
up to ridicule it was eagerly laid hold of, but there was 
no fiercer feeling. 

A report was spread during the days that immediately 
followed the duke's departure that orders had been given 
to the officers in the upper fortress to turn their cannon 
on the city at the first sign of rising. Such reports were 
very acceptable to those who, for political purposes, would 
fain have seen somewhat of stronger feeling against the 
duke. I have good reason to believe that such orders had 
been given, but I have still stronger reasons for doubting 
that they were ever given by the grand duke. And I am 
surest of all that, let them have been given by whom they 
may, there was not the smallest chance of their being 
obeyed. As for the duke himself, I am very sure that he 
would have given or even done much to prevent any such 
catastrophe. 

But perhaps the most remarkable and most singular 
scene of all that rose-water revolution was the duke's de- 
parture from his capital and his duchy. Other sovereigns 
in similar plight have hidden themselves, travestied them- 
selves, had hairbreadth escapes, or have not escaped at all. 
In Tuscany the fallen ruler went forth in his own carriao-e, 
with one other following it, both rather heavily laden with 
luggage. The San Gallo gate is that by which the hearse 
that conveys the day's dead to the cemetery on the slope 



424 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

of the Apennine leaves the city every night. And the 
duke passed amid the large crowd assembled at the gate 
to see him go, as peaceably as the vehicle conveying those 
whose days in Florence, like his, were at an end, went out 
a few hours later by the same road. 



CHAPTER XXXTI. 

LETTERS FROM PEARD. GARIBALDI. LETTERS FROM 

PULSZKT. 

Among the very great number of men and women whom 
I have known during my life in Italy — some merely ac- 
quaintances, and many whom I knew to be, and a few, 
alas ! a very few, whom I still know to be trusty friends 
— there were many of whom the world has heard, and 
some perhaps of whom it would not unwillingly hear 
something more. But time and space are limited, and I 
must select as best I may. 

I have a very pleasant recollection of " Garibaldi's Eng- 
lishman," Colonel Peard. Peard had many more qualities 
and capabilities than such as are essential to a soldier of 
fortune. The phrase, however, is perhaps not exactly 
that which should be us»d to characterize him. He had 
qualities which the true soldier of fortune should not pos- 
sess. His partisanship was with him in the highest degree 
a matter of conviction and conscientious opinion, and 
nothing would have tempted him to change his colors or 
draw his sword on the other side. I am not sure, either, 
whether a larger amount of native brain power, and (in a 
much greater degree) a higher quality of culture, than that 
of the general under whom it may be his fortune to serve, 
is a good part of the equipment of a soldier of fortune. 
And Peard 's relation to Garibaldi very notably exempli- 
fied this. 

He was a native of Devonshire, as was my first wife ; 
we saw a good deal of him in Florence, and I have before 
me a letter written to her by him from Naples on the 
28th of January, 1861, which is interesting in more re- 
spects than one. Peard was a man who idould have all 
that depended on him ship-shape. And this fact, taken 
in conjunction with the surroundings amid which he had 



426 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

to do his work, is abundantly sufficient to justify the 
growl he indulges in. 

" My dkar Mrs. Trollope," he writes, " I am asliamed to think either 
of .you or of other friends at Florence ; it is such an age since I have writ- 
ten to any of you. But I have been daily, from morning to night, hard at 
work for weeks. The honor of having a command is all very well, but 
the trouble and worry are unspeakable. Besides, I had such a set under 
me that it was enough to rile the sweetest-tempered man. Volunteers 
may be very well in their way. I doubt not their efficiency in repelling 
an attack in their own country, but defend me from ever again command- 
ing a brigade of English volunteers In a foreign country. As to the offi- 
cers, many were most mutinous, and some something worse. Thank 
goodness, the brigade is at an end. All I now wait for is the settlement 
of the accounts. If I can get away by the second week in February I at 
present think of taking a run as far as Cairo, then crossing to Jerusalem, 
and back by Jaffa, Beyrout, Smyrna, and Athens to Italy, when I shall 
once more hope to see you and yours. 

"Politics do not look well in Southern Italy, I fear. The Mazzinists 
have been most active, and have got up a rather strong feeling against 
Cavour and what they think the peace party. Now Italy must have a lit- 
tle rest for organization, civil as well as military. They do not give the 
government time to do or even propose good measures for the improve- 
ment of the country. No sooner are one set of ministers installed than 
intrigues are on foot to upset them. I firmly believe that the only hope for 
Southern Italy and Sicily is in a strong military government. These districts 
must be treated as conquered provinces, and the people educated and taught 
habits of industry, whether they like it or not. The country is at present 
in a state of barbarism, and must be saved from that. All that those who 
are supposed to be educated seem to think about is how they can get a few 
dollars out of government. [I fear the honest Englishman would find 
that those supposed to be educated in those provinces are as much in a 
state of barbarism in the matters that offended him as ever.] I never 
saw such a set of harpies in my life. One had the assurance to come to 
me a few days since, asking if I could not take him on the strength of the 
brigade, so as to enable him to get six months' pay out of the government. 
As to peculation, read 'Gil Bias,' and that will give you a faint sketch of 
the customs and habits of all impiegati [civil servants] in this part of Ita- 
ly. I do not believe that the Southern Italians, taken as a body, know 
what honesty is, [All that he says is true to the present day. But the dis- 
tinction which he makes between the Southern Italians and those of the 
other provinces is most just, and must be remembered.] But that is the 
fault of the horrid system of tyranny under which they have so long lived. 
I do not say that the old system must be reformed ; it must be totally 
changed. Solomon might make laws, but so corrupt are all the impiegati 
that I doubt if he could get them carried out. Poor Garibaldi is made a 
tool of by a set of designing intriguers, who will sacrifice him at any mo- 
ment. He is too honest to see or believe of dishonesty in others. He has 



LETTERS FROM PEARD. 427 

no judgment of character. He has been surrounded by a set of blacklegs 
and swindlers, many among them, I regret to say, English. How I look 
forward to seeing you all again ! Till we meet, believe me, 

" Most truly yours, Gio. [sic'] Peard." 

The last portion of this letter is highly interesting and 
historically well worth preserving. It is entirely and ac- 
curately true. And there was no man in existence more 
fitted by native integrity and hatred of dishonesty on the 
one hand, and close intimacy with the subject of his re- 
marks on the other, to speak authoritatively on the matter 
than " Garibaldi's Englishman." 

The following letter, written, as will be seen, on the eve 
of his departure for the celebrated expedition to Sicily, is 
also interesting. It is dated Genoa. 

"Dear Mrs. Trollope, — I have been thinking over your observations 
about tetmo. I don't give up my translation ; but would it not be literal 
enough to translate it, ' the bravest three colors ?' 

[This refers to the rendering of the lottery phrase terno in a translation 
by my wife of the stornello of Dall' Ongaro previously mentioned. In the 
Italian lottery, ninety numbers, 1-90, are always put into the wheel. Five 
only of these are drawn out. The player bets that a number named by him 
shall be one of these {semplice estratto) ; or that it shall be the first drawn 
{estratto determinato) ; or that two numbers named by him shall be two of 
the five drawn (ambo) ; or that three so named shall be drawn {terno). It 
will be seen, therefore, that the winner of an estratto determinato ought, 
if the play were quite even, to receive ninety times his stake. But, in 
fact, such a player would receive only seventy-five times his stake, the 
profit of the government consisting of this pull of fifteen per ninety 
against the player. Of course, what he ought to receive in any of the 
other cases is easily (not by me, but by experts) calculable. It will be ad- 
mitted that the difficulty of translating the phrase in Dall' Ongara's little 
poem, so as to be intelligible to English readers, was considerable. The 
letter then proceeds] : 

"I did not start, you will see, direct from Livorno [Leghorn], for Medici 
wrote me to join him here. Moreover, the steamer by which I expected to 
have gone did not make the trip, but was sent back to this city. I will 
worry you with a letter when anything stirring occurs. We sail to-night. 
Part went off last evening — fifteen hundred. We got in three steamers, 
and shall overtake the others. 

*' With kind regards to all friends, believe me, 

"Yours very faithfully, John Peard." 

The remarks contained m the former of the two letters 
here transcribed seem to make this a proper place for re- 
cording " what I remember " of Garibaldi. 



428 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

My first acquaintance with him was through my very 
old, and very highly valued, loved, and esteemed friend, 
Jessie White Mario. The Garibaldi culte has been with 
her truly and literally the object (apart from her devoted 
love for her husband, an equally ardent worshipper at the 
same shrine) for which she has lived, and for which she 
has again and again affronted death. For she accompa- 
nied him in all his Italian campaigns as a hospital nurse, 
and on many occasions rendered her inestimable services 
in that capacity under fire. If Peard has been called 
" Garibaldi's Englishman," truly Jessie White Mario de- 
serves yet more emphatically the title of " Garibaldi's 
Englishwoman." She has published a large life of Gari- 
baldi, which is far and away the best and most trust- 
worthy account of the man and his wonderful works. She 
is not blind to the spots on the sun of her adoration, nor 
does she seek to conceal the fact that there were such 
spots, but she is a true and loyal worshipper all the same. 

Her husband, Alberto Mario, was — alas ! that I should 
write so ; for no Indian wife's life was ever more ended 
by her suttee than Jessie Mario's life has practically been 
ended by her husband's untimely death ! — among the, I 
fear, few exceptions to Peard's remarks on the men who 
were around Garibaldi. He was not only a man of large 
literary culture, a brave soldier, an acute politician, a for- 
midable political adversary, and a man of perfect and in- 
corruptible integrity, but he would have been considered 
in any country and in any society in Europe a very per- 
fect gentleman. He was in political opinion a consistent 
and fearlessly outspoken Republican. He and I therefore 
dififered toto ccelo. But our differences never diminished 
our, I trust, mutual esteem, nor our friendly intercourse. 
But he was a horw frondeur. He edited during his latter 
years a newspaper at Rome, which was a thorn in the side 
of the authorities. I remember his being prosecuted and 
condemned for persistently speaking of the pope in his 
paper as " Signor Pecci." He was sentenced to imprison- 
ment. But all the government wanted was his condemna- 
tion ; and he was never incarcerated. But he used to go 
daily to the prison and demand the execution of his sen- 



GARIBALDI. 429 

tence. The jailer used to shut the door in his face, and 
he narrated the result of his visit in the next day's paper. 

It was as Jessie Mario's friend, then, that I first knew 
Garibaldi. 

One morning at the villa I then possessed, at Rieorboli, 
close to Florence, a maid-servant came flying into the 
room, where I was still in bed at six o'clock in the morn- 
ing, crying out in the utmost excitement, " C^ il Geyierale! 
c'h il Generale! E chiede di lei, sigyioreP'' — "Here's the 
General ! here's the General ! And he is asking for you, 
sir !" She spoke as if there was but one general in all 
the world. But there was hardly any room in Florence 
at that time where her words would not have been under- 
stood as well as I understood them. 

I jumped out of bed, got into a dressing-gown, and ran 
out to where the " General " was on the lawn before the 
door, just as I was, and hardly more than half awake. 
There he was, all alone. But if there had been a dozen 
other men around him, I should have had no difficulty in 
recognizing him. There was the figure as well known to 
every Italian from Turin to Syracuse as that of his own 
father — the light-gray trousers, the little foraging-cap, the 
red shirt, the bandana handkerchief loosely thrown over 
his shoulders and round his neck. 

Prints, photographs, portraits of all kinds, have made 
the English public scarcely less familiar than the Italian 
with the physiognomy of Giuseppe Garibaldi. But no 
photograph, of course, and no j^ainting which I have ever 
seen, gives certain peculiarities of that striking head and 
face, as I first saw it, somewhere about twenty years ago. 

The pose of the head, and the general arrangement and 
color of the tawny hair (at that time but slightly grizzled), 
justified the epithet "leonine" so often applied to him. 
His beard and mustache were of the same hue, and his 
skin was probably fair by nature, but it had been tanned 
by wind and weather. The clear blue eyes were sur- 
rounded by a network of fine lines. This had no trace or 
suggestion of cunning, as is often the case with wrinkles 
round the setting of the eyes, but was obviously the result 
of habitual contraction of the muscles in gazing at very 



430 



WHAT I REMEMBER. 



distant objects. In short, Garibaldi's eyes, both in this 
respect and in respect of a certain steadfast, far-away look 
in thera, were the eyes of a sailor. Seamanship, as is 
generally known, was his first profession. Another phys- 
ical peculiarity of his which I do not remember to have 
seen noticed in print was a remarkably beautiful voice. 
It was fine in quality and of great range ; sweet, yet 
manly, and with a suggestion of stored-up power which 
harmonized with the man. It seemed to belong, too, to 
the benevolence which was the habitual expression of his 
face when in repose. 

*' Jessie [pronounced Jessee] told me I should find you 
up ; but you are not so early as I am !" was his salutation. 
I said he had dans le temps been beforehand with others 
as well as with me. At which he laughed, not, I thought, 
ill-pleased. And then we talked — about Italy of course. 
One subject of his talk I specially remember, because it 
gave rise to a little discussion, and in a great degree gave 
me the measure of the man. 

"As for the priests," said he, " they ought all to be put 
to death, without exception and without delay." 

" Rather a strong measure," I ventured to say. 

" Not a bit too strong, not a bit," he rejoined, warmly. 
"Do we not put assassins to death ? And is not the man 
who murders your soul worse than the man who only kills 
your body?" 

I attempted to say that the difference of the two cases 
lay in the fact that as to the killing of the body there was 
no doubt about the matter, whereas mankind differed very 
widely as to the killing of the soul ; and that as long as 
it remained a moot point whether priests did so or not, it 
would hardly be practicable or even politic to adopt the 
measure he suggested. 

But he would not listen to me — only repeated with in- 
creasing excitement that no good could come to humanity 
till all priests were destroyed. 

Then we talked about the Marios, of both of whom he 
spoke with the greatest affection ; and of the prospects of 
" going to Rome," which, of course, he considered the sim- 
plest and easiest thing possible. 



GARIBALDI. 



431 



I saw Garibaldi on many subsequent occasions, but never 
again tete-d-tete, or a quattro occhi, as the Italians more 
significantly phrase it. The last time I ever saw him was 
under melancholy circumstances enough, though the occa- 
sion professed to be one of rejoicing. It was at the great 
gathering at Palermo for celebrating the anniversary of 
the Sicilian Vespers. Of course such a celebration would 
have brought Garibaldi to partake in it, wherever he 
might have been, short of in his grave. And truly he 
was then very near that. It was a melancholy business. 
He was brought from the steamer to his bed in the hotel 
on a litter through the streets lined by the thousands who 
had gathered to see him, but who had been warned that 
his condition was such that the excitement occasioned by 
any shouting would be perilous to him. Amid dead silence 
his litter passed through the crowds who were longing to 
welcome him to the scene of his old triumphs. Truly it 
was more like a funeral procession than one of rejoicing. 

It was very shortly before his death, which many peo- 
ple thought had been accelerated by that last effort to 
make his boundless popularity available for the propaga- 
tion of Radicalism. 

Peard's words reveal with exactitude the deficiency 
which lay at the root of all the blunders, follies, and im- 
prudences which rendered his career less largely beneficent 
for Italy than it might have been. " He had no judgment 
of character," and was too honest to believe in knavery. 
It must be added that he was too little intellio-ent to de- 
tect it, or to estimate the consequences of it. Of any large 
views of social life, or of the means by which, and the ob- 
jects for which, men should be governed, he was as inno- 
cent as a baby. In a word, he was not an intellectual 
man. All the high qualities which placed him on the 
pinnacle he occupied were qualities of the heart and not 
of the head. They availed with admirable success to fit 
him for exercising a supreme influence over men, espe- 
cially young men, in the field, and for all the duties of a 
guerilla leader. They would not have sufiiced to make 
him a great commander of armies ; and did still less fit 
him for becoming a political leader. 



432 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

Whom next sliall I present to the reader from the por- 
trait-gallery of my reminiscences ? 

Come forward, Franz Pulszky, most genial, most large- 
hearted of philosophers and friends ! — I can't say "guides," 
for though he was both the first, he was not the last, dif- 
fering widely as we did upon — perhaps not most, but at 
all events — many large subjects. 

I had known the lady whom Pulszky married in Vienna 
many years previously, and long before he knew her. She 
was the daughter of that highly cultivated Jewish family 
of whom I have spoken before. When I first knew her 
she was as pretty and charming a young girl as could be 
imagined. She was possessed then of all the accomplish- 
ments that can adorn a girl at that period of life. Later 
on she showed that she was gifted with sense, knowledge, 
energy, firmness, courage, and caracthre in a degree very 
uncommon. Since leaving Vienna I had neither seen nor 
heard more of her, till she came to live with her husband 
and family of children in Florence. But our old acquaint- 
anceship was readily and naturally renewed, and his villa 
near the city became one of the houses I best loved to 
frequent. She had at that time, and even well-nigh I 
take it in those old days at Vienna, abandoned all seem- 
ino- of conformity to the practices of the faith she was 
born in. 

I used to say of Pulszky that he was like a barrel full 
to the bung with generous liquor, which flowed in a full 
stream, stick the spigot in where you would. He was — is, 
I am happy to say is the proper tense in his case — a most 
many-sided man. His talk on artistic subjects, mainly his- 
torical and biographical, was abundant and most amusing. 
His antiquarian knowledge was large. His ethnographical 
learning, theories, and speculations were always interest- 
ing and often most suggestive. Years had, I think, put 
some water in the wine of his political ideas, but not 
enough to prevent differences between us on such sub- 
jects. He was withal — there again I mean " is," for I am 
sure that years and the air of his beloved Pesth cannot 
have put any water in that generous and genial wine — a 
fellow of infinite jest, and full of humor ; in a word, one 



LETTERS FROM PULSZKY. 433 

of the fullest and most delightful companions I have ever 
known. He talked English with no further accent than 
served to add a raciness to the flavor of his conversation ; 
and every morning of one fixed day in the week he used 
to come to Ricorboli for what he called a tobacco parlia- 
ment. 

I used frequently to spend the evening at his villa, 
where one met a somewhat extraordinary cosmopolitan 
gathering. Generally we had some good music ; for Ma- 
dame Pulszky was — unhappily in her case the past tense 
is needed — a very perfect musician. Among other people 
more or less off the world's beaten track I used to meet 
there a very extraordinary Russian, who had accomplished 
the rare feat of escaping from Siberia. He was a Nihilist 
of the most uncompromising type ; a huge, shaggy man, 
with an unkempt head and chest like those of a bear ; and 
by his side — more or less — there was a ■pretty, 2:)etite, dainty 
little young wife — beauty and the beast, if ever that sto- 
ried couple were seen in the flesh. 

Many years afterwards when I and my wife saw Pulszky 
at Pesth, and were talking of old times, he reminded me 
of this person ; and on my doubting that any man in his 
senses could believe in the practicability of the extreme 
Nihilist theories, he instanced our old acquaintance, say- 
ing, "Yes, there is a man who in his very inmost con- 
science believes that no good of any sort can be achieved 
for humanity till the sponge shall have been passed over 
all that men have instituted and done, and a perfect tabula 
rasa has been substituted for it." 

I have many letters from Pulszky, written most of them 
after his return to Pesth, and for the most part too much 
occupied with the persons and politics of that recent day 
to be fit for publication. 

Here is one, written before he left Florence, which may 

be given: 

"Villa Petrovich, 
"My dear Trollope, — I am just returned from a long excursion with 
Boxall to Arezzo, Cortona, Borgo San Sepolcro, Citt^ di Castello, Perugia, 
and Assisi. We were there for a week, and enjoyed it amazingly. I am 
sorry to say that I am not now able to join your party to Camaldoli, since 
I must see Garibaldi, and do not know as yet what I shall do when the war 
19 



434 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

begins, which might happen during your excursion. I hope you will drink 
a glass of water to my remembrance at La Vernia from the miraculous 
well, called from the rocks by my patron saint, St. Francis of Assisi. I 
shall come to you on Sunday, and will tell you more about him, I studied 
him at Assisi. Yours sincerely, Fr. Pulszkt." 

The following passages may be given from a long letter, 
written from Pesth on the 2'7th of March, 1869. It is for 
the most part filled with remarks on the party politics of 
the hour, and persons, many of them still on the scene : 

" My dear Mrs. and Mr. Trollope, — You don't believe how glad I was 
to get a token of remembrance from you. It seems to me quite an age 
since I left Florence, and your letter was like a voice from a past period. 
I live here as a stranger ; you would not recognize me. I talk nothing but 
politics and business. There is not a man with whom I could speak in the 
way that we did on Sundays at your villa. I am of course much with old 
Deak. I often dine with him. I know all his anecdotes and jokes by 
heart. He likes it, if I visit him; but our conversation remains within 
the narrow limits of party politics and the topics of the day. Sometimes 
I spend an evening with Baron Eotvos, the minister of public instruction, 
my old friend ; and there only we get both warm in remembering the days 
of our youth, and building chateaux en Eapagne for the future of the coun- 
try. Eotvos has appointed me director of the National Museum, which 
contains a library of one hundred and eighty thousand volumes, mostly 
Hungarian; a very indifferent picture-gallery, with a tew good pictures 
and plenty of rubbish ; a poor collection of antiquities ; splendid mediaeval 
goldsmith work ; arms, coins, and some miserable statues ; a good collec- 
tion of stuffed birds ; an excellent one of butterflies ; a celebrated one of 
beetles, and good specimens for geology and mineralogy. But all this col- 
lection is badly, if at all, catalogued ; badly arranged ; and until now we 
have in a great palace an appropriation of only £1200 a year. I shall 
have much to do there — as much as any minister in his office, if politics 
leave me the necessary time for it." 

Then follows a quantity of details about the party pol- 
itics of the day. And then he continues : 

"Such a contested election with us costs about £2000 to £3000. I 
must say I never spent money with more regret than this ; but I had to 
maintain the party interest and my family influence in my electoral dis- 
trict. I have there a fine old castle and a splendid park, but I rarely go 
to the country, since I have jumped, as you know, once more into the 
whirlpool of politics, and can't get out again. An agrarian communistic 
agitation has been initiated, I do not know whether with or without the 

sanction of S , but certainly it has spread rapidly over a great portion 

of the country, and I doubt whether government has the energy for put- 



LETTERS FROM PULSZKY. 435 

ting that agitation down. It is a very serious question, especially as it 
finds us engaged in many other questions of the highest interest." 

Then he gives an outline of the position of Hungary in 
relation to other states, and then he continues : 

*'We remain still in opposition with the Wallachians, or, as they now 
like to call themselves, Rumanes, and we try to maintain the peace with 
Prussia. And now when we should concentrate all our forces to meet the 
changes which threaten us, a stupid and wicked opposition divides the na- 
tion into two hostile camps [how very singular and unexampled !]. We 
fight one another to the great pleasure of Russia and Prussia, who enjoy 
our fratricidal feuds as the Romans in the amphitheatre enjoyed the fights 
of the barbarians in the arena. 

"I must beg your pardon, dear Mrs. Trollope, that I grow so pathetic! 
You know it is not my custom when I am with ladies. But you must 
know likewise that I live now outside of female society. I do not exactly 
know whether it is my fault or that of the ladies of Pesth ; so much is cer- 
tain that only at Vienna, where I go from time to time, I call upon ladies. 
As to my children, Augustus, whom you scarcely know, is a volunteer in 
the army according to our law of universal conscription. Charles you may 
have seen at Florence. I sent him thitlier to visit his grandmother. 
[Madame Walter, the mother of Madame Pulszky ; the lady who had re- 
ceived us with such pleasant hospitality at Vienna, and who had come to 
reside at Florence, where she lived to a great age much liked and re- 
spected.] Polixena gets handsome and clever ; little Garibaldi is to go 
to school in September next. I grow old, discontented, insupportable 
[we found him at Pesth many years afterwards no one of the three !] ; a 
journey to Greece and Italy would certainly do me immense good ; but I 
fear I must give up that plan for the present year, since after a contested 
election it is a serious thing to spend money for amusement. In June I 
shall leave my present lodging and go to the museum, which stands in a 
handsome square opposite to the House of Parliament. Excuse me for my 
long, long talk ; and do not forget your faithful friend, in partibus infi- 
dclhmi, Fr. Pulszky." 

On the 26th of March, 1870, he writes a letter which 
was brought to us by his son, the Augustus mentioned in 
the letter I have just transcribed : 

" My dear Mrs. and Mr. Trollope, — Detained by parliamentary duties 
and the management of my own affairs, I am still unable to make a trip 
to Italy to visit my friends, who made the time of my exile more agreeable 
to me than my own country. But I send in my stead a second edition of 
the old Pulszky, revised and corrected ad usiim Ddphini, though I do not 
doubt that you prefer the old book, to which you were accustomed. My 
son Augustus has now finished his studies, and is D.E.L. — in a few days 



436 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

lieutenant in the reserve, and secretary at tlie ministry of finance. Few 
young men begin their career in a more promising way. As to myself, 
Augustus will tell you more than I could write. I have remained too long 
in foreign countries to feel entirely at home at Pesth, where people know 
how to make use of everybody. I am M.P., belong to the finance commit- 
tee, am chairman of the committee of foreign affairs in the delegation, di- 
rector of the museum, chairman of the philological section in the academy 
of sciences, chairman of the society of fine arts, vice-president of three in- 
surance offices, and member of the council of two railroads. This long list 
proves sufficiently that my time is taken up from early morning to night. 
But my health is good, despite of the continuous wear and tear. 

"During the summer vacations 1 wish to go to England. For ten 
years I have not been there ; and I long to see again a highly civilized 
people ; else I become myself a barbarian. Still I am proud of my Hun- 
garians, who really struggle hard, and not without success, to be more than 
they are now — the first of the barbarians. 

*' I have for a long time not heard of you. Of course, in our correspond- 
ence your letter was the last, not mine. It is my own fault. But you must 
excuse me still for one year. Then I hope I can put myself in a more com- 
fortable position. For the present I am unable even to read anything but 
Hungarian papers, bills, reports, and business letters. I envy you in your 
elegant villa, where you enjoy life ! I hope you are both well, and do not 
forget your old friend, Fr. Pulszky. 

"P.S. — Augustus will give you a good photograph of me." 
Here is one other letter of the 13th June, 1872 : 

" My dear Trollope, — What a pity that my time does not allow me to 
visit Italy at any other season than just in summer. We are in the midst 
of our canvass for the general elections. My son Augustus is to be re- 
turned for my old place, Szecseny, without opposition on the 21st. On the 
following day we go to the poll at Gyongyos, a borough which is to send 
me to Parliament. It is a contested election, therefore rather troublesome 
and expensive, though not too expensive. Parliament meets with us on 
the first of September. Thus my holidays are in July and August. Shall 
we never have the pleasure to see you and Mrs. Trollope, to whom I beg 
you to give my best regards, here at Pesth ? Next year is the great ex- 
hibition at Vienna. Might it not induce you to visit Vienna, whence by 
an afternoon trip you come to Pesth, where I know you would amuse your- 
selves to your hearts' content. 

" My children are quite well. Charles is at the university at Vienna. 
He despises politics, and wants to become professor at the University of 
Pesth in ten or twelve years. 

"As to me, I am well, very busy ; much attacked by the opposition since 
I am a dreaded party man. Besides I have to reorganize the National 
Museum, from the library, which has no catalogue, to the great collection 
of mineralogy and plants. We bought the splendid picture-gallery of 
Prince Esterhazy. This, too, is under my direction, with a most important 



LETTERS FROM PULSZKY. 43 Y 

collection of prints and drawings. You see, therefore, that my time is 
fully occupied. Yours always, Fr. Pulszky." 

My wife and I did subsequently visit our old friend at 
Pesth, and much enjoyed our brief stay there and our chat 
of old times. But the work of reorganizing the museum 
was not yet completed. I do sincerely hope that the task 
has been brought to an end by this time, and that I may 
either in England or at Pesth once again see Franz Pulszky 
in the flesh ! 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

WALTER S. LANDOK. G. P. MARSH. 

According to the pathetic, and on the face of it accu- 
rately truthful, account of the close of his life in Mr. For- 
ster's admirable and most graphic life of him, I never 
knew Landor. For the more than octogenarian old man 
whom I knew at Florence was clearly not the Landor whom 
England had known and admired for so many and such 
honored years. Of all the painful story of the regrettable 
circumstances which caused him to seek his last home in 
Florence it would be mere impertinence in me to speak, 
after the lucid, and at the same time delicately touched, 
account of them which his biographer has given. 

I may say, however, that even after the many years of 
his absence from Florence there still lingered a traditional 
remembrance of him — a sort of Landor legend — which 
made all us Anglo -Florentines of those days very sure 
that however blarnable his conduct (with reference to the 
very partially understood story of the circumstances that 
caused him to leave England) may have been in the eyes 
of lawyers or of moralists, the motives and feelings that 
had actuated him must have been generous and chivalrous. 
Had we been told that, finding a brick wall in a place 
where he thought no wall should be, he had forthwith pro- 
ceeded to batter it down with his head, though it was not 
his wall but another's, we should have recognized in the 
report the Landor of the myths that remained among us 
concerning him. But that while in any degree compos 
mentis he had, under whatever provocation, acted in a 
base, or cowardly, or mean, or underhand manner, was, we 
considered, wholly impossible. 

There were various legendary stories current in Florence 
in those days of his doings in the olden times. Once — so 
said the tradition — he knocked a man down in the street, 



WALTER S. LANDOR. 439 

was brought before the delegato, as the police magistrate 
was called, and promptly fined one piastre, value about 
four and sixpence ; whereupon he threw a sequin (two 
piastres) down upon the table and said that it was unneces- 
sary to give him any change, inasmuch as he purposed 
knocking the man down again as soon as he left the court. 
We, po^er/, as regarded the date of the story, were all con- 
vinced that the true verdict in the matter was that of the 
old Cornish jury, " Sarved un right." 

Landor, as I remember him, was a handsome-looking old 
man, very much more so, I think, than he could have been 
as a young man, to judge by the portrait prefixed to Mr. 
Forster's volumes. He was a man of somewhat leonine 
aspect as regards the general appearance and expression 
of the head and face, which accorded well with the large 
and massive build of the figure, and to which a superbly 
curling white beard added not only picturesqueness, but a 
certain nobility. 

Landor had been acquainted with the Garrows, and with 
my first wife at Torquay ; and the acquaintance was 
quickly renewed during his last years at Florence. He 
would frequently come to our house in the Piazza dell' 
Independenza, and chat for a while, generally after he had 
sat silent for some little time ; for he used to appear fa- 
tigued by his walk. Later, when his walks and his visits 
had come to an end, I used often to visit him in " the little 
house under the wall of the city, directly back of the' 
Carmine, in a by-street called the Via Nunziatina, not far 
from that in which the Casa Guidi stands," which Mr. 
Forster thus describes. I continued these visits, always 
short, till very near the close ; for whether merely from 
the perfect courtesy which was a part of his nature, or 
whether because such interruptions of the long morning 
hours were really welcome to him, he never allowed me 
to leave him without bidding me come again. 

I remember him asking me after my mother at one of 
the latest of these visits. I told him that she was fairly 
well, was not suffering, but that she was becoming very 
deaf. "Dead, is she ?" he cried, for he had heard me im- 
perfectly ; " I wish I was ! I can't sleep," he added, "but I 



440 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

very soon shall, soundly too, and all the twenty-four hours 
round." I used often to find him reading one of the novels 
of his old friend G. P. R. James, and he hardly ever failed 
to remark that he was a "woonderful" writer ; for so he 
pronounced the word, which was rather a favorite one 
with hira. 

It was a singular thing that Landor always dropped his 
aspirates. He was, I think, the only man in his position in 
life whom I ever heard do so. That a man who was not 
only by birth a gentleman, but was by genius and culture 
— and such culture ! — very much more, should do this, 
seemed to me an incomprehensible thing. I do not think 
he ever introduced the aspirate where it was not needed, 
but he habitually spoke of 'and, 'ead, and 'ouse. 

Even very near the close, when he seemed past caring 
for anything, the old volcanic fire still lived beneath its 
ashes, and any word which touched even gently any of his 
favorite and habitual modes of thought was sure to bring 
forth a reply uttered with a vivacity of manner quite 
startling from a man who the moment before had seemed 
scarcely alive to what you were saying to him. To what 
extent this old volcanic fire still burned may be estimated 
from a story which was then current in Florence. The 
circumstances were related to me in a manner that seemed 
to me to render it impossible to doubt the truth of them. 
But I did not see the incident in question, and therefore 
cannot assert that it took place. The attendance pro- 
vided for him by the kindly care of Mr. Browning, as 
narrated by Mr. Forster, was most assiduous and exact, as 
I had many opportunities of observing. But one day 
when he had finished his dinner, thinking that the servant 
did not come to remove the things so promptly as she 
ought to have done, he took the four corners of the table- 
cloth (so goes the story), and thus enveloping everything 
that w^as on the table, threw the whole out of the window. 

I received many notes from Landor, for the most part 
on trifling occasions, and possessing little interest. They 
were interesting, however, to the race of autograph col- 
lectors, and they have all been coaxed out of me at differ- 
ent times, save one. I have, however^ in my possession 



WALTER S. LANDOR. 44 1 

several letters from him to my father-in-law, Mr. Garrow, 
many passages in which are so characteristic that I am 
sure my readers will thank me for giving them, as I am 
about to do. The one letter of his that remains to me is, 
as the reader will see, not altogether without value as a 
trait of character. The young lady spoken of in it is the 
same from whose papers in the Atlantic 3Io7ithly, entitled 
" Last Days of Walter Savage Landor," Mr. Forster lias 
gleaned, as he says, one or two additional glimpses of him 
in his last Florence home. The letter is without date, and 
runs as follows : 

" My dear Sir, — Let me confess to you that I am not very willing that 
it should be believed desirous [he evidently meant to write either " that 
I should be believed desirous," or " that it should be believed that I am 
desirous "] of scattering my image indiscriminately over the land. On 
this sentiment I forbade Mr. Forster to prefix an engraving of me over my 
collected works. If Miss Field wishes one more photograph, Mr. Alinari 
may send it to her, and 1 enclose the money to pay for it. With every 
good wish for your glory and prosperity, 
"I remain, my dear sir, 

"Very truly yours, W.S. Landor." 

The writing is that of a sadly shaking hand. The lady's 
request would unquestionably have been more sure of a 
favorable response had she preferred it in person, instead 
of doing so through me. But I suspect from the phrase 
" one more," and the underlining of the word one, that 
she had already received from him more than one photo- 
graph, and was ashamed to make yet another application. 
But she had led, or allowed, me to imagine that she was 
then asking for the first time. The care to send the money 
for the price of the photograph was a characteristic touch. 
Miss Field was, I well remember, a great favorite with 
Landor. I remember her telling me that he wished to 
give her a very large sort of scrap-book, in which, among 
a quantity of things of no value, there were, as I knew, 
some really valuable drawings ; and asking me whether 
she should accept it, her own feeling leaning to the opin- 
ion that she ought not to do so, in which view I strongly 
concurred. If I remember right the book had been sent 
to her residence, and had to be sent back again, not with- 
out danger of seriously angering him. 
19* 



442 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

Here are the letters I have spoken of, written by Lan- 
dor to Mr. Garrow. They are all undated save by the 
day of the month, but the postmarks show them to have 
been all written in 1836-1838. The first is a very long let- 
ter, almost the whole of which is about a quarrel between 
husband and wife, both friends of the writer, which it 
would serve no good purpose to publish. The following 
passage from it, however, must not be lost : 

'* What egregious blockheads must those animals have been who dis- 
cover a resemblance to my style in Latin or other quotations. I have no 
need of crutches. I can walk forward without anybody's arm ; and if I 
wanted one, I should not take an old one in preference. Not only do I 
think that quotations are deformities and impediments, but I am apt to 
believe that my own opinion, at least in those matters of which I venture 
to treat, is quite as good as any other man's, living or dead. If their 
style is better than my own, it would be bad policy to insert it ; if worse, 
I should be like a tailor who would recommend his abilities by engraft- 
ing an old sleeve on a new coat. . . . Southey tells me that he has known 
his lady more than twenty years, that the disproportion of their ages is 
rational, and that, having only one daughter left, his necessary absences 
would be irksome to her. Whatever he does, is done wisely and vir- 
tuously. As for Rogers, almost an octogenarian, be it on his own head ! 
A dry nettle tied to a rose-bud, just enough life in it to sting, and that's 
all. Lady Blessington would be delighted at any fresh contribution from 
Miss Garrow. Let it be sent to her at Gore House. I go there to-morrow 
for ten days, then into Warwickshire, then to Southampton. But I have 
not given up all hope of another jaunt to Torquay. Best compliments 
to the ladies. Yours ever, W. S. L." 

The following is dated the 15th of November, 1837 — 
just half a century ago ! 

" 35 St. James's Square, Bath. 

" I should be very ungrateful if I did not often think of you. But 
among my negligences I must regret that I did not carry away with me 
the address of our friend Bezzi. [A Piedmontese refugee who was a 
very intimate friend of Garrow's. I knew him in long subsequent years, 
when political changes had made it possible for him to return to Italy. 
He was a very clever and singularly brilliant man, whose name, I think, 
became known to the English public in connection with the discovery of 
the celebrated portrait of Dante on a long whitewashed wall of the Bar- 
gello, in Florence. There was some little jealousy about the discovery 
between him and Kirkup. The truth was that Kirkup's large and curious 
antiquarian knowledge led him to feel sure that the picture must be there, 
under the whitewash ; while Bezzi's influence with the authorities suc- 
ceeded in getting the wall cleared of its covering.] I am anxious to 



WALTER S. LANDOR. 443 

hear how he endures his absence from Torquay, and I will write to him 
the moment I hear of him. Tell Miss Garrow that the muses like the 
rustle of dry leaves almost as well as the whispers of green ones. If she 
doubts it, entreat her on my part to ask the question of them. Nothing 
in Bath is vastly interesting to me now. Two or three persons have come 
up and spoken to me whom I have not seen for a quarter of a century. 
Of these faces I recollect but one, and it was the ugliest ! By the same 
token — but here the figure of aposiopesis is advantageous to me — old 
Madam Burridge, of my lodgings, has sent me three large forks and one 
small, which I left behind. She forgot to send another of each. What 
is worse, I left behind me a three-faced seal, which I think I once showed 
you. It was enclosed in a black, rough case. This being of the time of 
Henry the Eighth, and containing the arms of my family connections, I 
value far above a few forks, or a few dozens. It cannot be worth six- 
pence to whoever has it. One of the engravings was a greyhound with 
an arrow through him, a crest of my grandmother's, whose maiden name 
was Noble. If you pass by, pray ask about it — not that I am ever dis- 
appointed at the worst result of an inquiry. I am afraid the ladies of 
your house will think me imprudent ; and what must be their opinion, if 
you let it transpire that I have furthermore invested a part of my scrip 
in the beaver trade. Offer ray best regards to them all, and believe me, 
" My dear sir, Yours very sincerely, W. S. L." 

The following is dated only January 2d, but the post- 
mark shows it to have been written from Bath on that 
day, 1838: 

" My dear Sir, — Yesterday there were lying across my fender three or 
four sheets of paper, quite in i^eadiness to dry themselves, and receive my 
commands. One of these, I do assure you, was destined for Torquay, but 
the interruption of visitors would allow me time only to cover half a one 
■with my scrawl. Early last week I wrote a long letter to Bezzi, but wanted 
the courage to send it. I wish him to remain in England as much almost 
as you yourself can do. But if after promising his lady [it is noteworthy 
that such a master of English as Landor should use, now for the second 
time in these letters, this ugly phrase] to let her try the air of Italy, he 
should withdraw, she might render his life less comfortable by reproaches 
not altogether unmerited. When she gets there she will miss her friends ; 
she will hear nothing but a language which is unknown to her, and will 
find that no change of climate can remove her ailments. I offered my 
house to Bezzi some time ago, with its two gardens and a hundred acres 
of land, all for a hundred a year. But I am confident my son will never 
remain in England, and after the expiration of the year will return to Tus- 
cany. Bezzi cannot find another house, even without garden, for that 
money. James paid for a worse twelve louis a month, although he took 
it for eight months. So the houses in Tuscany are very far from inviting 
to an economist, although vastly less expensive than at Torquay, the rival 
of Naples in this respect as in beauty. ... I have found my seal in a 



444 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

waistcoat pocket. I do not think the old woman stole the forks, but she 
knew they were stolen. . . . Kenyon has something of Falstaff about him, 
both in the physical and the moral. But he is a friendly man, of rare 
judgment in literary works, and of talents that only fall a little short of 
genius. 

" God preserve you from your Belial Bishop ! [Phil potts]. What an 
incumbent ! I would not see the rascal once a month to be as great a man 
as Mr. Shedden, or as sublime a genius as Mr. Wise ; [word under the 
seal] would drown me in bile or poison me with blue pills. A society 
has been formed here, of which the members have come to the resolution 
of making inquiries at every house about the religion of the inmates, what 
places of worship they attend, etc., etc. Is it not hard upon a man who 
has changed a couple of sovereigns into half-crowns for Christmas boxes, 
to be forced to spend ten shillings for a horsewhip, when he no longer 
has a horse? Our weather here is quite as mild and beautiful as it can 
possibly be at Torquay. Miss Garrow, I trust, has listened to the chal- 
lenges of the birds, and sung a new song. As Bezzi is secretary and 
librarian, I must apply to him for it, unless she will condescend to trust 
me with a copy. I will now give you a specimen of my iron seal, brass 
setting and pewter mending. Yours ever, W. S. L." 

The mention of Bishop Philpotts (though not by name) 
in the foregoing letter, reminds me of a story which used 
to be told of him, and which is too good to be lost, even 
though thus parenthetically told. When at Torquay he 
used to frequent a small church, in which the service was 
at that time performed by a very young curate of the 
extra gentle butter-won't-melt-in-his-mouth kind, who had 
much objection to the phrase in the communion service, 
" Eateth and drinketh his own damnation," and ventured 
somewhat tremblingly to substitute "condemnation" for 
the word which offended him. Whereupon the orthodox 
bishop reared his head, as he knelt with the rest of the 
congregation, and roared aloud ''^ Damnation P"* Whether 
the curate had to be carried out fainting I don't remember. 

The next letter of Landor's that I have is dated 13th 
April, St. James's Square, Bath. The postmark shows 
that it was written in 1838. 

'* My dear Sir, — I have had Kenyon here these last four days. He 
tells me that he saw Bezzi in London, and that we may entertain some 
hopes that he will be induced to remain in England. All he wants is 
some employment ; and surely his powerful friends among the Whigs 
could easily procure him it. But the Whigs, of all scoundrelly factions, 
are, and have ever been, the most scoundrelly, the most ungenerous, the 



WALTER S. LANDOR. 



445 



most ungrateful. What have they done for Fonblanque, who could have 
kicked them overboard on his toe-nail ? Their abilities put together are 
less than a millionth of his ; and his have been constantly and most zeal- 
ously exerted in their favor. My first conversation with Kenyon was about 
the publication of his poems, which are just come out. They are in part 
extremely clever ; particularly one on happiness and another on the shrine 
of the Virgin. He was obliged to print them at his own expense; and 
his cousin, Miss Barrett, who also has written a few poems of no small 
merit, could not find a publisher. These, however, bear no proportion 
to Miss Garrow's.* Yet I doubt whether publishers and the folks they 
consult would find out that. 

" Southey was about to write to me when his brother's death, by which 
six children came under his care, interrupted him. I wish I possessed 
one or two of Miss Garrow's beautiful poems, that I might ask his opin- 
ion and advice about them. His opinion I know would be the same as 
mine ; but his advice is what I want. Surely it cannot be requisite and 
advantageous to withhold them from the world so long as you imagine. 
In one single year both enough of materials and of variety for a volume 
might be collected and prepared. Would Miss Garrow let me offer one 
to the ' Book of Beauty ' ? I shall be with Lady Blessington the last day 
of the present month. One of the best poems of our days [on death], 
appeared in the last 'Book of Beauty.' But in general its poetry is very 
indifferent. With best regards to the ladies, 
" I am ever, my dear sir, 

" Yours most sincerely, W. S. L." 

The following, dated merely " Gore House, Sunday 
morning," was written, or at least posted, on the 14th May, 
1838: 

" My dear Sir, — It is impossible you should not often have thought me 
negligent and ungrateful. Over and over again have I redd [s?c] the in- 
comparably fine poetry you sent me ; and intended that Lady Blessington 
should partake in the high enjoyment it afforded me. I had promised her 
to be at Gore House towards the end of April, but I had not the courage to 
face all my friends. However, here I came on Friday evening; and be- 
fore I went to bed I redd to her ladyship what I promised her. She was 
enchanted. I then requested her to toss aside some stuff of mine, and to 
make way for it in the next ' Book of Beauty.' The gods, as Homer says, 

* To those who never knew Landor, and the habitual limitless exagger- 
ation of his manner of speaking, it may be necessary to observe that he 
did not really hold any opinion so monstrous as might be supposed from 
the passage in the text. And a letter given by Mr. Forster expresses 
earnestly and vigorously enough his high admiration for Miss Barrett's 
poetry. It must be remembered, also, that at the time this was written 
Mr. Landor could only have seen some of the earliest of Miss Barrett's 
writinffs. 



446 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

granted half my prayer, and it happened to be (what was not always the 
case formerly) the better half. She will insert both. It is only by some 
such means as that that the best poetry in our days comes with mincing 
step into popularity. Mine being booted and spurred, both ladies and 
gentlemen get out of the way of it, and look down at it with a touch of 
horror. 

"Now for news, and about your neighbors. Captain Ackland is going 
to marry a niece of Massy Dawson. Mischievous things are said about 

Lady M , all false, you may be sure. Admiral Aylraer, after all his 

services under Nelson, etc., etc., is unable to procure a commission in the 
marines for his nephew, Frederick Paynter. Lord A. will not ask. I am 
a suitor to all the old women I know, and shall fail too, for it is not the 
thing they want me to ask of them. 

" I see two new deputy lord-lieutenants have been appointed for the 
County of Monmouth, My estate there is larger than the lord lieutenant's ; 
yet even this mark of respect has not been paid me. It might be, safely. 
I shall consider myself sold to the devil, and for more than my value, when 
I accept any distinction, or anything else from any man living. The Whigs 
are growing unpopular, I hear. I hope never to meet any of them. Last 
night, however, I talked a little with Grantley Berkeley, and told him a bit 
of my mind. You see, I have not much more room in ray paper, else I 
should be obliged to tell you that the bells are ringing, and that I have 
only just time to put on my gloves for church. 

" Adieu, and believe me, v^^ith kindly regards to the ladies, 

" Yours, W. S. L." 

The last in this series of letters which has reached ray 
hands is altogether undated, but appears by the postmark 
to have been written from Bath, 19th July, 1838 : 

*' My dear Sir, — There is one sentence in your letter which shocked me 
not a little. You say ' The Whigs have not offered you a deputy-lieuten- 
antcy ; so cheap a distinction could not have hurt them. But then you are 
too proud to ask,' etc. Do you really suppose that I would have accepted 
it even if it had been offered ? No, by God ! I would not accept any dis- 
tinction even if it were offered by honest men. I will have nothing but 
what I can take. It is, however, both an injustice and an affront to confer 
this dignity on low people, who do not possess a fourth of my property, and 
whose family is as ignoble as Lord Melbourne's own, and not to have of- 
fered the same to me. In the eleventh page of the ' Letters ' I published 
after the quelling of Bonaparte are these words : ' I was the first to abjure 
the party of the Whigs, and shall be the last to abjure the principles. 
When the leaders had broken all their promises to the nation, had shown 
their utter incapacity to manage its affairs, and their inclination to crouch 
before the enemy, I permitted my heart after some struggles to subside 
and repose in the cool of this reflection — Let them escape. It is only the 
French nation that ever dragged such feebleness to the scaffold.' Again, 
page rS5 ; ' Honest men, I confess, have generally in the present times an 



WALTER S. LANDOR. 447 

aversion to the Whig faction, not because it is suitable either to honesty 
or understanding to prefer the narrow principles of the opposite party, but 
because in every country lax morals wish to be and are identified with pub- 
lic feeling, and because in our own a few of the very best have been found 
in an association with the very worst.' Whenever the Tories have deviated 
from their tenets, they have enlarged their views and exceeded their prom- 
ises. The Whigs have always taken an inverse course. Whenever they 
have come into power, they have previously been obliged to slight those 
matters, and to temporize with those duties, which they had not the courage 
either to follow or to renounce. 

"And now, my dear sir, to pleasanter matters. I have nothing in the 
press, and never shall have. I gave Forster all my works, written or to 
be written. Neither I nor my family shall have anything to do with book- 
sellers. They say a new edition of my ' Imaginary Conversations ' is called 
for. I have sent Forster a dozen or two of fresh ones, but I hope he will 
not hazard them before my death, and will get a hundred pounds, or near 
it, for the whole. 

" If ever I attended a pubUc dinner, I should like to have been present 
at that which the people gave to you. Never let them be quiet until the 
Church has gone to the devil, its lawful owner, and till something a little 
like Christianity takes its place. If parsons are to be lords, it is but right 
and reasonable that the queen should be pope. Indeed, I have no objec- 
tion to this, but I have to the other. What a singularity it is that those 
who profess a belief in Christ do not obey him, while those who profess it 
in Mahomet or Moses or Boodh are obedient to their precepts, if not in 
certain points of morality, in all things else. Carlyle is a vigorous thinker, 
but a vile writer, worse than Bulwer. I breakfasted in company with him 
at Milman's. Macaulay was there, a clever clown, and Moore too, whom I 
had not seen till then. Between those two Scotchmen he appeared like a 
glow-worm between two thistles. There were several other folks, literary 
and half literary. Lord Northampton, etc., etc. I forgot Rogers. Milman 
has written the two best volumes of poetry we have seen lately ; but when 
Miss Garrow publishes hers I am certain there will be a total eclipse of 
them. My friend Hare's brother, who married a sister of the impudent 
coxcomb, Edward Stanley, has bought a house at Torquay, and Hare tells 
me that unless he goes to Sicily he shall be there in winter. If so, we may 
meet ; but Bath is my dear delight in all seasons. I have been sitting for 
my picture, and have given it to Mrs. Paynter, It is admirably executed 
by Fisher. Yours ever, W. S. L." 

These letters are all written upon the old-fashioned 
square sheet of letter paper, some gilt-edged, entirely 
written over, even to the turned-down ends, and heavily 
sealed. 

Mr. Forster says no word about the deputy-lieutenantcy, 
and Landor's anger and disgust in connection with it. He - 
must necessarily have known all about it, but probably 



448 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

in the exuberance of his material did not think it worth 
mentioning. But it evidently left almost as painful an 
impression on Landor's mind as the famous refusal of 
the Duke of Beaufort to appoint him a justice of the 
peace. 

During the later portion of my life at Florence, and 
subsequently at Rome, Mr. G. P. Marsh and his very 
charming wife were among our most valued friends for 
many years. Marsh was an exception to the prevailing 
American rule, which for the most part changes their di- 
plomatists with the change of president. He had been 
United States minister at Constantinople and at Turin be- 
fore he came to Florence with the Italian monarchy. At 
Rome he was " the dean " of the diplomatic body, and on 
many occasions various representative duties fell upon him 
as such which were especially unwelcome to him. The 
determination of the Great Powers to send ambassadors 
to the court of the Quirinal instead of ministers plenipo- 
tentiary, as previously, came as a great boon to Mr. Marsh. 
For as the United States send no ambassadors, his position 
as longest in office of all the diplomatic body no longer 
placed him at the head of it. 

Mr. Marsh was a man of very large and varied culture. 
A thorough classical scholar and excellent modern linguist, 
philology was, perhaps, his most favorite pursuit. He 
wrote various books, his best I think a very large octavo 
volume, entitled not very happily "Man in Nature." The 
subject of it is the modifications and alterations which this 
planet has undergone at the hands of man. His subject 
leads him to consider much at large the denudation of 
mountains, which has caused and is causing such calami- 
tous mischief in Italy and the south of France. He shows 
very convincingly and interestingly that the destruction 
of forests causes not only floods in winter and spring, but 
drought in summer and autumn. And the efforts which 
have recently been made in Italy to take some steps tow- 
ards the reclothing of the mountain-sides have in great 
measure been due to his work, which has been largely cir- 
culated in an Italian translation. 

The following letter, which I select from many received 



G. P. MARSH. 449 

from him, is not without interest. It is dated 30th No- 
vember, 1867. 

"Dear Sir, — I return you Layard's article, which displays his usual 
marked ability, and has given me much pleasure as well as instruction. I 
should much like to know what are his grounds for believing that ' a satis- 
factory settlement of this Roman question Avould have been speedily 
brought about with the concurrence of the Italian government and the 
Liberal party in Rome, and with the tacit consent of the Emperor of the 
French, had it not been for the untoward enterprise of Garibaldi,' p. 283. 
I certainly have not the slightest ground for believing any such thing ; nor 
do I understand to whom the settlement referred to would have been ' satis- 
factory.' Does Mr. Layard suppose that any conceivable arrangement 
would be satisfactory both to the papacy and to Italian Liberals out of 
Rome? The government of Italy, which changes as often as the moon, 
might have accepted something which would have satisfied Louis Xaooleon, 
Antonelli, and the three hundred nohili of Rome, who waited at dinner, 
napkin on arm, on the Antiboiui, to whom they gave an entertainment — 
but the people ? 

" I send you one of Ferretti's pamphlets, which please keep. And I en- 
close in the package two of Tuckerman's books. If you could turn over 
the leaves of these and say to me in a note that they impress you favor- 
ably, and that you are not displeased with his magazine article, I will make 
him a happy man by sending him the note. 

" Very truly yours, Geo. P. Marsh." 

I did more than "turn over the leaves " of the book sent, 
and did very truly say that they had interested me much. 
It is rather suggestive to reflect how utterly unintelligible 
to the present generation must be the terra " Antiboini" 
in the above letter, without a word of explanation. The 
highly unpopular and objectionable "Papal Legion" had 
been in great part recruited from Antibes, and were hence 
nicknamed " Antiboini," and not, as readers of the present 
day might fairly imagine, from having been the opponents 
of any " boini." 

The personal qualities of Mr. Marsh had obtained for 
him a great and, I may indeed say, exceptional degree of 
consideration and regard from his colleagues of the diplo- 
matic body, and from the Italian ministers and political 
world generally. And I remember one notable instance 
of the manifestation of this, which I cannot refrain from 
citing. Mr. Marsh had written home to his government 
some rather trenchantly unfavorable remarks on some por- 
tion of the then recent measures of the Italian ministry. 



450 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

And by some awkward accident or mistake these had 
found their way into the columns of an American news- 
paper. The circumstances might have given rise to very 
disagreeable and mischievous complications and results. 
But the matter was suffered to pass without any official 
observation solely from the high personal consideration in 
which Mr. Marsh was held, not only at the Consulta (the 
Roman foreign office), but at the Quirinal, and in many a 
Roman salon. 

Mr. Marsh died, full of years and honors, at a ripe old 
age. But the closing scene of his life was remarkable 
from the locality of it. He had gone to pass the hot sea- 
son at Vallombrosa, w^here a comfortable hotel replaces 
the old forestleria of the monastery, w^hile a school of 
forestry has been established by the government w^ithin 
its walls. Amid those secular shades the old diplomatist 
and scholar breathed his last, and could not have done so 
in a more peaceful spot. But the very inaccessible nature 
of the place made it a question of some difficulty how the 
body should be transported in properly decorous fashion 
to the railway station in the valley below — a difficulty 
which was solved by the young scholars of the school of 
forestry, w^ho turned out in a body to have the honor of 
bearing on their shoulders the remains of the man whose 
writings had done so much to awaken the government to 
the necessity of establishing the institution to which they 
belonged. 

Mrs. Marsh, for so many years the brightest ornament 
of the Italo-American society, and equally admired and 
welcomed by the English colony, first at Florence and 
then at Rome, still lives for the equal delight of her 
friends on the other side of the Atlantic. I may not, 
therefore, venture to say more of " what I remember " of 
her than that it abundantly accounts for the feeling of 
an unfilled void, which her absence occasioned and occa- 
sions in both the American and English world on the 
banks of the Tiber. 



CHAPTEK XXXIV. 

MR. AND M E S. LEWES. 

It was in the spring of the year 1860 that I first became 
acquainted with " George Eliot " and G. H. Lewes in Flor- 
ence. But it was during their second visit to Italy in 1861 
that I saw a good deal more of them. It was in that year, 
towards the end of May, that I succeeded in persuading 
them to accompany me in a visit to the two celebrated 
Tuscan monasteries of Camaldoli and La Vernia. I had 
visited both on more than one occasion previously — once 
with a very large and very merry party of both sexes, of 
whom Colley Grattan was one — but the excursion made 
in company with G. H. Lewes and George Eliot was an- 
other-guess sort of treat, and the days devoted to it stand 
out in high relief in my memory as some of the most 
memorable in my life. 

They were anxious to be moving northwards from Flor- 
ence, and I had some difliculty in persuading them to un- 
dertake the expedition. A certain weight of responsibil- 
ity, therefore, lay on me — that folks whose days were so 
sure of being turned to good profit, should not by my 
fault be led to waste any of them. But I had already 
seen enough of both of them to feel sure that the special- 
ties of the very exceptional little experience I proposed to 
them would be appreciated and acceptable. Neither he 
nor she were fitted by their habits, or, indeed, by the 
conditions of their health, to encounter much "roughing," 
and a certain amount of that was assuredly inevitable — a 
good deal more five-and-twenty years ago than would be 
the case now. But if the flesh was weak, truly the spirit 
was willing! I have heard grumbling and. discontent 
from the young of either sex in the heyday of health and 
strength in going over the same ground. But for my 
companions on the present occasion, let the difliculties and 



452 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

discomforts be what they might, the continually varied 
and continually suggestive interest they found in every- 
thing around them overrode and overbore all material con- 
siderations. 

Kever, I think, have I met with so impressionable and 
so delicately sensitive a mind as that of George Eliot ! I 
use "sensitive" in the sense in which a photographer 
uses the word in speaking of his plates. Everything that 
passed within the ken of that wonderful organism, wheth- 
er a thing or combination of things seen, or an incident, 
or a trait revealing or suggesting character, was instantly 
reproduced, fixed, registered by it, the operating light 
being the wonderful native force of her intellect. And 
the photographs so produced were by no means evanes- 
cent. If ever the admirably epigrammatic phrase, " Wax 
to receive and marble to retain," was applicable to any 
human mind, it was so to that of George Eliot. And not 
only were the enormous accumulations of stored-up im- 
pressions safe beyond reach of oblivion or confusion, but 
they were all and always miraculously ready for co-ordi- 
nation with those newly coming in at each passing mo- 
ment. Think of the delight of passing, in companionship 
with such a mind, through scenes and circumstances en- 
tirely new to it ! 

Lewes, too, was a most delightful companion, the cheer- 
iest of philosophers. The old saying of " Comes jucundus 
in vid pro vehiculo est " was especially applicable to him. 
Though very exhaustible in bodily force, he was inex- 
haustible in cheerfulness, and, above all, in unwearied, in- 
cessant, and minute care for "Polly." In truth, if any 
man could ever be said to have lived in another person, 
Lewes in those days, and to the end of his life, lived in 
and for George Eliot. The talk of worshipping the ground 
she trod on, and the like, are pretty lovers' phrases, some- 
times signifying much, and sometimes very little. But it 
is true accurately and literally of Lewes. That care for 
her, at once comprehensive and minute, unsleeping watch- 
fulness, lest she should dash her foot against a stone, was 
never absent from his mind. She had become his real 
self, his genuine ego to all intents and purposes. And his 



MR. AND MRS. LEWES. 453 

talk and thoughts were egoistic accordingly. Of his own 
person, his ailments, his works, his ideas, his impressions, 
you might hear not a word from him in the intercourse of 
many days. But there was in his inmost heart a naif and 
never-doubting faith that talk on all these subjects as re- 
garded her must be profoundly interesting to those he 
talked with. To me, at all events, it was so. Perhaps 
had it been otherwise there would have been less of it. 

We were to reach Camaldoli the first night, and had 
therefore to leave Florence very early in the morning. 
At Pelago, a little 7:>«e.se — village we should call it — on 
the Arno, some fourteen or fifteen miles above Florence, 
we were to find saddle-horses, the journey we were about 
to make being in those days practicable in no other way, 
unless on foot. There was at that time a certain Antonio 
da Pelago, whose calling it was to act as guide, and to 
furnish horses. I had known him for many years, as did 
all those whose ramblings took them into those hills. He 
was in many respects what people call "a character," and 
seemed to fancy himself to have in some degree proprie- 
tary rights over the three celebrated Tuscan monasteries, 
Vallombrosa, Camaldoli, and La Yernia. He was well 
known to the friars at each of these establishments, and 
indeed to all the sparse population of that country-side. 
He was a very good and competent guide and courier, 
possessed with a very amusingly exaggerated notion of 
his own importance, and rather bad to turn aside from 
his own preconceived and predetermined methods of doing 
everything that had to be done. George Eliot at once 
made a study of him. 

I am reminded, too, as I write, of the great amusement 
with which my old and highly valued friend of many 
years, Alfred Austin, who long subsequently was making 
the same excursion with me and both our wives, listened 
to an oration of the indispensable Antonio. One of his 
baggage-horses had strayed and become temporarily lost 
among the hills. He was exceedingly wroth, and poured 
forth his vexation in a torrent of very unparliamentary 
language. ^^Corpo di GiiidaP'' he exclaimed, among a cu- 
rious assortment of heterogeneous adjurations — " Body of 



454 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

Judas !" — stooping to the ground as he spoke, and striking 
the back of his hand against it, with an action that very 
graphically represented a singular survival of the classical 
testor inferos! Then suddenly changing his mood, he 
apostrophized the missing beast with the most tearful re- 
proach, " There ! there now ! Thou hast made me throw 
away all my devotions ! All ! And Easter only just 
gone !" That is to say, your fault has betrayed me into 
violence and bad language, which has begun a new record 
of offences just after I had made all clear by my Easter 
devotions. 

The first stage of our rough ride was to the little hill- 
town of Prato Vecchio on the infant Arno, and close un- 
der the lofty peaks of Falterona, in the flanks of which 
both the Arno and the Tiber rise. The path, as it de- 
scends to the town, winds round the ruins of an ancient 
castle, beneath the walls of which is still existent that 
Fontebranda fountain which Adam the forger in the "In- 
ferno " longed for a drop of, and which almost all Dantes- 
can scholars and critics mistake for a larger and nowadays 
better-known fountain of the same name .at Siena. On 
pointing it out to George Eliot, I found, of course, that 
the name and the whole of Adam the forger's history was 
familiar to her ; but she had little expected to find his 
local habitation among these wild hills; and she was un- 
aware of the current mistake between the Siena Fonte- 
branda and the little rippling streamlet before us. 

The little osteria, at which we were to get some break- 
fast, was a somewhat lurid dwelling in an uninviting back 
lane. But the ready and smiling good-humor with which 
the hostess prepared her coffee and bread, and eggs and 
bacon, availed much to make up for deficiencies, especially 
for guests far more interested in observing every minute 
specialty of the place, the persons, and the things, than 
they were extreme to mark what was amiss. I remember 
George Eliot was especially struck by the absence of either 
milk or butter, and by the fact that the inhabitants of 
these hills, and indeed the Tuscans of the remoter parts 
of the country generally, never use them at all — or did 
not in those days. 



MR. AND MRS. LEWES. 455 

But it was beyond Prato Vecchio that the most charac- 
teristic part of our ride began. The hills, into the folds 
and gullies of which we plunged almost immediately after 
leaving the walls of the little town, are of the most arid 
and, it is hardly too much to say, repulsive description. 
It is impossible to imagine soil more evidently, to the least 
experienced eye, hopeless for any purpose useful to man 
than these rolling and deeply water-scored hills. Nor has 
the region any of the characters of the picturesque. The 
soil is very friable, consisting of an easily disintegrated, 
slaty limestone, of a pale whitey-brown in prevailing col- 
or, varied here and there by stretches of similar material 
greenish in tint. For the most part the hillsides are in- 
capable of nourishing even a blade of grass ; and they are 
evidently in the process of rapid removal into the Medi- 
terranean, for the further extension of the plain that has 
been formed between Pisa and the shore since the time, 
only a few hundred years ago, when Pisa was a first-class 
naval power. All this, with the varied historical corolla- 
ries and speculations which it suggested, was highly inter- 
esting to my fellow-travellers. 

But the ride, nowhere dangerous, though demanding 
some strong faith in the sure-f ootedness of Antonio's steeds, 
is not an easy one. The sun was beating with unmiti- 
gated glare on those utterly shadeless hillsides. It was 
out of the question to attempt anything beyond a w^alk. 
The sides of the gullies, which had to be ascended and de- 
scended, though never reaching to the picturesque propor- 
tions of precipices, were yet sufficiently steep and rough 
to make very fatiguing riding for a lady unaccustomed to 
such exercise. And George Eliot was in no very robust 
condition of health at the time. And despite his well-dis- 
sembled anxiety I could see that Lewes was not easy re- 
specting her capability of resisting the heat, the fatigue, and 
the unwonted exercise. But her cheerfulness and activ- 
ity of interest never failed her for an instant. Her mind 
" made increment of everything." Nor even while I led her 
horse down some of the worst descents did the exigencies 
of the path avail to interrupt conversation, full of thought 
and far-reaching suggestiveness, as her talk ever was. 



456 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

At last we reached the spot where the territory of the 
monastery commences ; and it is one that impresses itself 
on the imagination and the memory in a measure not likely 
to be forgotten. The change is like a pantomime trans- 
formation scene. The traveller passes without the slight- 
est intermediate gradation from the dreary scene which 
has been described into the shade and the beauty of a re- 
gion of magnificent and well-managed forest. The bodily 
delight of passing from the severe glare of the sun into 
this coolness, welcome alike to the skin and to the eye, was 
very great. And to both my companions, but especially 
to George Eliot, the great beauty of the scene we entered 
on gave the keenest pleasure. 

Assuredly Saint Romuald in selecting a site for his 
Camaldolcse did not derogate from the apparently in- 
stinctive wisdom which seems to have inspired the found- 
ers of monasteries of every order and in every country 
of Europe. Invariably the positions of the religious 
houses were admirably well chosen; and that of Camal- 
doli is no exception to the rule. The convent is not visi- 
ble from the spot where the visitor enters the forest 
boundary which marks the limit of the monastic domain. 
Nearly an hour's ride through scenery increasing in beau- 
ty with each step, where richly green lawns well stocked 
with cattle are contrasted wonderfully with the arid des- 
olation so recently left behind, has still to be done ere the 
convent's hospitable door is reached. 

The convent door, however, in our case was not reached, 
for the building used for the reception of visitors, and 
called the forest ieria, occupies* its humble position by the 
road-side a hundred yards or so before the entrance to the 
monastery is reached. There Antonio halted his caval- 
cade and, while showing us our quarters with all the air of 
a master, sent one of his attendant lads to summon the 
padre forestieraio — the monk deputed by the society to 
receive strangers. 

Had our party consisted of men only, we should have 
been received in the convent, where there was a very 
handsome suite of rooms reserved for the purpose. But 
females could not enter the precincts of the cloister. The 



MR. AND MES. LEWES. 457 

father in question very shortly made his appearance, a 
magnificent figure, whose long black beard flowing over 
his perfectly clean white robe made as picturesque a pre- 
sentment of a friar as could be desired. He was extremely 
courteous, and seemed to desire nothing better than to 
talk ad libitum. But for my fellow-travellers, rest after 
their broiling ride was the thing most urgently needed. 

And this requirement brought us to the consideration 
of our accommodation for the night. The humble little 
forestieria at Camaldoli was not built for any such pur- 
pose. It never, of course, entered into the heads of the 
builders that need could ever arise for receiving any save 
male guests. And for such, as I have said, a handsome 
suite of large rooms, both sitting-rooms and bedrooms, 
with huge fireplaces for the burning of colossal logs, is 
provided. Ordinary brethren of the order would not be 
lodged there. The magnificence is reserved for a cardi- 
nal (Gregory XYL, who had been a Camaldolese, frequent- 
ly came here), or a travelling bishop and his suite, or a 
heretic English or American milord. But not for any 
daughter of Eve ! And the makeshift room over a car- 
penter's shop, which is called the forestieria^ has been de- 
voted to the purpose only in consequence of the incompre- 
hensible mania of female English heretics for visiting the 
disciples of St. Romuald. And there the food supplied 
from the convent can be brought to them. But for the 
night? I had warned my friends that they would have 
to occupy different quarters ; and it now became necessary 
to introduce George Eliot to the place she was to pass the 
night in. 

At the distance of about twenty minutes' walk above 
the convent, across a lovely but very steep extent of beau- 
tifully green turf, encircled by the surrounding forest, 
there is a cowhouse, with an annexed lodging for the cow- 
herd and his wife. And over the cow stable is — or was, 
for the monks have been driven away and all is altered 
now — a bedchamber with three or four beds in it, which 
the toleration of the community has provided for the ac- 
commodation of the unaccountable female islanders. I 
have assisted in conveying parties of ladies up that steep 
20 



458 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

grassy slope by the light of a full moon, when all the beds 
had to be somewhat more than fully occupied. But fort- 
unately George Eliot had the whole chamber to herself — 
perhaps, however, not quite fortunately, for it was a very 
novel and not altogether reassuring experience for her to 
be left absolutely alone for the night, to the protection of 
an almost entirely unintelligible cowherd and his wife. 
But there was no help for it. G. H. Lewes did not seem 
to be quite easy about it ; but George Eliot did not appear 
to be troubled by the slightest alarm or misgiving. She 
seemed, indeed, to enjoy all the novelty and strangeness 
of the situation ; and when she bade us good-night from 
the one little window of her chamber over the cows, as we 
turned to walk down the slope to our grand bedrooms at 
the convent, she said she should be sure to be ready when 
we came for her in the morning, as the cows would call 
her, if the cowherds failed to do so. 

The following morning we were to ride up the moun- 
tain to the Sagro Eremo. Convent hours are early, and 
soon after the dawn we had convoyed our female compan- 
ion down the hill to the little forestieria for breakfast, 
where the padre forestieraio gave us the best coffee we 
had had for many a day. George Eliot declared that she 
had had an exceptionally good night, and was delighted 
with the talk of the magnificently black-bearded father, 
who superintended our meal, while a lay brother waited 
on us. 

The former was to start in a day or two on his triennial 
holiday, and he was much excited at the prospect of it. 
His naif talk and quite childlike questions and specula- 
tions as to times and distances, and what could be done in 
a day, and the like, amused George Eliot much. In reck- 
oning up his available hours he deducted so much in each 
day for the due performance of his canonical duties. I 
remarked to him that he could read the prescribed service 
in the diligence, as I had often seen priests doing. "Sec- 
ular priests no doubt !" he said, "but that would not suit 
one of us P^ 

Our ride up to the Sagro Eremo was a thing to be re- 
membered. I had seen and done it all before ; but I had 



MR. AND MRS. LEWES. 459 

not seen or done it in company with George Eliot. It 
was like doing it with a new pair of eyes and freshly in- 
spired mind. The way is long and steep, through mag- 
nificent forests, with every here and there a lovely en- 
closed lawn, and fugitive peeps over the distant country. 
On our way up we met a singular procession coming down. 
It consisted of a low, large cart drawn by two oxen, and at- 
tended by several lay brothers and peasants, in the centre of 
which was seated an enormously fat brother of the order, 
whose white-robed bust with immense flowino^ white beard, 
emerging from a quantity of red wraps and coverings 
that concealed the lower part of his person, made an ex- 
traordinary appearance. He was being brought down 
from the Sagro Eremo to the superior comfort of the con- 
vent, because he was unwell. 

At the Sagro Eremo — the sacred hermitage — is seen 
the operation of the Camaldolese rule in its original strict- 
ness and perfection. At the convent itself it is, or has 
become, much relaxed in many respects. The Camaldo- 
lese, like other Carthusians, are properly hermits, that is 
to say, their life is not conventual, but eremitical. Each 
brother at the Sagro Eremo inhabits his own separately- 
built cell, consisting of sleeping-chamber, study, wood- 
room, and garden, all of microscopical dimensions. His 
food, exclusively vegetable, is passed in to him by a little 
turn-table made in the wall. There is a refectory, in which 
the members of the community eat in common on two or 
three festivals in the course of the year. On these occa- 
sions only is any speech or oral communication between 
the members permitted. There is a library tolerably well 
furnished with historical as well as theological works. But 
it is evidently never used. Nor is there any sign that the 
little gardens are in any degree cultivated by the occu- 
pants of them. I remarked to George Eliot on the strange- 
ness of this abstinence from both the two permitted occu- 
pations, which might seem to afford some alleviation of 
the awful solitude and monotony of the eremitical life. 
But she remarked that the facts as we saw them were just 
such as she should have expected to find. 

The Sagro Eremo is inhabited by three classes of in' 



460 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

mates : firstly, by novices, who are not permitted to come 
down to the comparative luxury and comfort and milder 
climate of the convent till they have passed three or four 
years at the Sagro Ererao ; secondly, by those who have 
been sent thither from the convent below as punish- 
ment for some misdoing thirdly, by those who remain 
there of their own free will, in the hope of meriting a high- 
er and more distinguished reward for their austerities in 
a future life. One such was pointed out to us, who had 
never left the Eremo for more than fifty years ; a tall, 
very gaunt, very meagre old man, with white hair, hollow 
cheeks, and parchment-skin, a nose like an eagle's beak, 
and deep-set, burning eyes — as typical a figure, in its way, 
as the rosy mountain of a man whom we met travelling 
down in his ox-cart. 

Lewes was always anxious lest George Eliot should 
overtire herself. But she was insatiably interested both 
in the place and the denizens of it. 

Then, before supper at the forestieria was ready, our 
friend, the isither forestieraio, insisted on showing us the 
growing crop of haricot-beans, so celebrated for their ex- 
cellence that some of them were annually sent to .Poj)e 
Gregory the Sixteenth as long as he lived. 

Then followed another night in the cowhouse for George 
Eliot and for us in the convent, and the next morning we 
started with Antonio and his horses for La Vernia. 

The ride thither from Camaldoli, though less difiicult, 
is also less peculiar, than that from Prato Vecchio to the 
latter monastery, at least until La Vernia is nearly reached. 
The penna (Cornish, Pen ; Cumbrian, Penrith ; Spanish, 
Pena) on which the monastery is built is one of the nu- 
merous isolated rocky points which have given their names 
to the Pennine Alps and Apennines. The Penna de la 
Vernia rises very steeply from the rolling ground below, 
and towers above the traveller with its pyramidal point in 
very suggestive fashion. The well-wooded sides of the 
conical hill are diversified by emergent rocks, and the 
plume of trees on the summit seems to suggest a Latin 
rather than a Celtic significance for the "Penna." 

It is a long and tedious climb to the convent, but the 



MR AND MRS. LEWES. 461 

picturesque beauty of the spot, the charm of the distant 
outlook, and, above all, the historical interest of the site, 
rewards the visitor's toil abundantly. There is diforestieria 
here also, within the precincts of the convent, but not with- 
in the technical " cloister." It is simply a room in which 
visitors of either sex may partake of such food as the poor 
Franciscans can furnish them, which is by no means such 
as the more well-to-do Carthusians of Camaldoli supply to 
their guests. Nor have the quarters set apart for the 
sleeping accommodation of male visitors within the clois- 
ter anything of the spacious old- world grandeur of the 
strangers' suite of rooms at the latter monastery. The 
difficulty, also, of arranging for the night's lodging of a 
female is much greater at La Vernia. There is, indeed, a 
very fairly comfortable house, kept under the manage- 
ment of two sisters of the order of St. Francis, expressly 
for the purpose of lodging lady pilgrims to the shrine. 
For in former days — scarcely now, I think — the wives of 
the Florentine aristocracy used to undertake a pilgrimage 
to La Vernia as a work of devotion. But this house is at 
the bottom of the long ascent — nearly an hour's severe 
climb from the convent — an arrangement which necessa- 
rily involves much additional fatigue to a lady visitor. 

George Eliot writes to Miss Sara Hennell, on the 19th 
of June, a letter, inserted by Mr. Cross in his admirable 
biography of his wife : " I wish you could have shared the 
pleasures of our last expedition from Florence to the mon- 
asteries of Camaldoli and La Vernia. I think it was just 
the sort of thing you would have entered into with thor- 
ough zest." And she goes on to speak of La Vernia in a 
manner which seems to show that it was the latter estab- 
lishment which most keenly interested and impressed her. 
She was, in fact, under the spell of the great and still po- 
tent personality of Saint Francis, which informs with his 
memory every detail of the buildings and rocks around 
you. Each legend was full of interest for her. The alem- 
bic of her mind seemed to have the secret of distilling 
from traditions which, in their grossness, the ordinary 
visitor turns from with a smile of contempt, the spiritual 
value they once possessed for ages of faith, or at least th^ 



462 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

poetry with which the simple belief of those ages has in- 
vested them. Nobody could be more alive to every aspect 
of natural beauty than she showed herself during the whole 
of this memorable excursion. But at La Vernia the hu- 
man interest overrode the simple aesthetic one. 

Her day was a most fatiguing one. And when Lewes 
and I wearily climbed the hill on foot, after escorting her 
to her sleeping-quarters, he was not a little anxious lest 
on the morrow she should find herself unable for the ride 
which was to take us to the spot where a carriage was 
available for our return to 'Florence. 

But it was not so. She slept well under the care of the 
Franciscan nuns, who managed to get her a cup of milk- 
less coffee in the morning, and so save her from the neces- 
sity of again climbing the hill. A charming drive through 
the Casentino, or valley of the Upper Arno, showing us the 
aspect of a Tuscan valley very different from that of the 
Lower Arno, brought to an end an expedition which has 
always remained in my memory as one of the most delight- 
ful of my life. 

I had much talk with George Eliot during the time — 
very short at Florence — when she was maturing her Ital- 
ian novel, " Romola." Of course, I knew that she was di- 
gesting the acquisitions of each day with a view to writ- 
ing, but I had not the slightest idea of the period to which 
her inquiries were specially directed, or of the nature of 
the work intended. But when I read "Romola" I was 
struck by the wonderful power of absorption manifested 
in every page of it. The rapidity with which she squeezed 
out the essence and significance of a most complex period 
of history and assimilated the net results of its many-sided 
phases was truly marvellous. 

Nevertheless, in drawing the girl Romola, her subjec- 
tivity has overpowered her objectivity. Romola is not — 
could never have been — the product of the period and of 
the civilization from which she is described as having is- 
sued. There is far too much of George Eliot in her. It 
was a period, it is true, in which female culture trod upon 
the heels of the male culture of the time, perhaps, more 
closely than it has ever done since. But, let Vittoria Co- 



MR. AND MRS. LEWES. 463 

lonna be accepted, as probably she may be, as a fair expo- 
nent of the highest point to which that culture had reached, 
and an examination of the sonnets into which she has put 
her highest thoughts and aspirations together with a com- 
parison of those with the mental calibre of Romola will, 
I think, support the view I have taken. 

Tito, on the other hand, gives us, with truly wonderful 
accuracy and vigor, "the very form and pressure of the 
time." The pages which describe him read like a quint- 
essential distillation of the Florentine story of the time 
and of the human results which it had availed to produce. 
The character of Savonarola, of course, remains, and must 
remain, a problem, despite all that has been done for the 
elucidation of it since " Romola " was written. But her 
reading of it is most characteristically that which her own 
idiosyncrasy — so akin to it in its humanitarian aspects, so 
superior to it in its methods of considering man and his 
relations to the unseen — would lead one to expect. 

In 1869-70 George Eliot and Mr. Lewes visited Italy 
for the fourth time. I had, since the date of their former 
visit, quitted my house in Florence, and established my- 
self in a villa and small podere at Ricorboli, a commune 
outside the Florentine Porta San Niccolo. And there I 
had the great pleasure of receiving them under my roof, 
assisted in doing so by my present wife. Their visit was 
all too short a one — less than a week, I think. 

But one knows a person with whom one has passed even 
that short time under the same roof far better than can 
ever be the result of a very much longer acquaintanceship 
during which one meets only in the ordinary intercourse 
of society. And the really intimate knowledge of her 
which I was thus enabled to obtain has left with me the 
abiding conviction that she was intellectually by far the 
most extraordinarily gifted person it has ever been my 
good-fortune to meet. I do not insist much on the uni- 
form and constant tender consideration for others, which 
was her habitual frame of mind, for I have known others 
of whom the same might have been said. It is true that 
it is easy for those in the enjoyment of that vigorous 
health which renders mere living a pleasure to be kindly ; 



464 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

and that George Eliot was never betrayed by suffering, 
however protracted and severe, into the smallest manifesta- 
tion of impatience or unkindly feeling. But neither is this 
trained excellence of charity matchless among women. 
What was truly, in my experience, matchless, was simply 
the power of her intelligence ; the precision, the prompti- 
tude, the rapidity (though her manner was by no means 
rapid), the largeness of the field of knowledge, the com- 
pressed outcome of which she was at any moment ready 
to bring to bear on the topic in hand ; the sureness and 
lucidity of her induction ; the clearness of vision, to which 
muddle was as impossible and abhorrent as a vacuum is 
supposed to be to nature ; and all this lighted up and gild- 
ed by an infinite sense of and capacity for humor — this 
was what rendered her to me a marvel, and an object of 
inexhaustible study and admiration. 

To me, though I never passed half an hour in conversa- 
tion with her w^ithout a renewed perception of the vast- 
ness of the distance which separated her intelligence from 
mine, she was a companion each minute of intercourse 
with whom was a delight. But I can easily understand 
that, despite her perfect readiness to place herself for the 
nonce on the intellectual level of those with whom she 
chanced to be brought in contact, her society may not have 
been agreeable to all. I remember a young lady — by no 
means a stupid or unintelligent one — telling me that being 
with George Eliot always gave her a pain in " her mental 
neck," just as an hour passed in a picture-gallery did to 
her physical neck. She was fatigued by the constant at- 
titude of looking up. But, had she not been an intelligent 
girl, she need not have constantly looked up. It w^ould 
be a great mistake to suppose that George Eliot's mental 
habits exacted such an attitude from those she conversed 
with. 

Another very prominent and notable characteristic of 
that most remarkable idiosyncrasy was the large and al- 
most universal tolerance with which George Eliot regarded 
her fellow-creatures. Often and often has her tone of 
mind reminded me of the French saying, '"''Tout conyiaitre 
ce serait tout pardomier /" I think that of all the human 



MR. AXD MRS. LEWES. 465 

beings I have ever known or met George Eliot would have 
made the most admirable, the most perfect father confes- 
sor. I can conceive nothing more healing, more salutary 
to a stricken and darkened soul than unrestricted con- 
fession to such a mind and such an intelligence as hers. 
Surely a church with a whole priesthood of such confes- 
sors would produce a model world. 

And with all this I am well persuaded that her mind 
was at that time in a condition of growth. Her outlook 
on the world could not have been said at that time to have 
been a happy one. And my subsequent acquaintance with 
her in after-years led me to feel sure that this had become 
much modified. She once said to me at Florence that she 
wished she never had been born. I was deeply pained 
and shocked ; but I am convinced that the utterance was 
the result, not of irritation and impatience caused by pain, 
but of the influence exercised on the tone of thought and 
power of thinking by bodily malady. I feel sure that she 
w^ould not have given expression to such a sentiment when 
I and my wife were subsequently staying with her and 
Lewes at their lovely home in Surrey. She had by that 
time, I cannot but think, reached a brighter outlook and 
happier frame of mind. 

We had as neighbors at Ricorboli, although on the op- 
posite bank of the Arno, our old and very highly-valued 
friends, Mr. G. P. Marsh, the United States minister, 
and his charming wife, to w^hom for the sake of both 
parties w^e were desirous of introducing our distinguished 
guests. We thought it right to explain to Mrs. Marsh 
fully all that was not strictly normal in the relationship of 
George Eliot and G. H. Lewes before bringing them to- 
gether, and were assured both by her and by her husband 
that they saw nothing in the circumstances which need 
deprive them of the pleasure of making the acquaintance 
of persons whom it would be so agreeable to them to know. 
The Marshes were at that time giving rather large weekly 
receptions in the fine rooms of their villa, and our friends 
accompanied us to one of these. It was very easy to see 
that both ladies appreciated each other. There was a large 
gathering, mostly of Americans, and Lewes exerted him- 
20* 



466 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

self to be agreeable and amusing — which he always was, 
when he wished to be, to a degree rarely surpassed. 

He and I used to walk about the country together when 
" Polly " was indisposed for walking ; and I found him 
an incomparable companion, whether a gay or a grave 
mood were uppermost. He was the best raconteur I ever 
knew, full of anecdote, and with a delicious perception 
of humor. She also, as I have said — very needlessly to 
those who have read her books — had an exquisite feeling 
and appreciation of the humorous, abundantly sufficient, if 
unsupported by other examples, to put Thackeray's dicta 
on the subject of woman's capacity for humor out of court. 
But George Eliot's sense of humor was different in qualit}'- 
rather than in degree from that which Lewes so abun- 
dantly possessed. And it was a curious and interesting 
study to observe the manifestation of the quality in both 
of them. It was not that the humor, which he felt and 
expressed, was less delicate in quality or less informed by 
deep human insight and the true nihil-humanum-a-mealie- 
nxim-puto spirit than hers, but it was less wide and far- 
reaching in its purview of human feelings and passions 
and interests ; more often individual in its applicability, 
and less drawn from the depths of human nature as ex- 
hibited by types and classes. And often they would cap 
each other with a mutual relationship similar to that be- 
tween a rule of syntax and its example, sometimes the one 
coming first and sometimes the other. 

I remember that during the happy days of this visit I 
was writing a novel, afterwards published under the title 
of " A Siren," and Lewes asked me to show him the manu- 
script, then nearly completed. Of course I was only too 
glad to have the advantage of his criticism. He was 
much struck by the story, but urged me to invert the 
order in which it was told. The main incident of the plot 
is a murder caused by jealousy, and I had begun by nar- 
rating the circumstances which led up to it in their natural 
sequence. He advised me to begin by bringing before the 
reader the murdered body of the victim, and then unfold 
the causes which had led to the crime. And I followed 
his advice. 



MR. AND MRS. LEWES. 467 

The murder is represented as having been committed on 
a sleeping person by piercing the heart with a needle, and 
then artistically covering the almost imperceptible orifice 
of the wound with wax, in such sort as to render the dis- 
covery of the wound and the cause of death almost impos- 
sible even by professional eyes. And I may mention that 
the facts were related to me by a distinguished man of 
science at Florence as having really occurred. 

Perhaps, since I have been led to speak of this story of 
mine, I may be excused for recording an incident con- 
nected with it, which occurred some years subsequently 
at Rome, in the drawing-room of Mrs. Marsh. The scene 
of the story is Ravenna. And Mrs. Marsh specially intro- 
duced me to a very charming young couple, the Count 
and Countess Pasolini of Ravenna, as the author of "A 
Siren." They said they had been most anxious to know 
who could have written that book. They thought that 
no Englishman could have been resident at Ravenna with- 
out their having known him, or at least known of him. 
And yet it was evident that a writer who could photo- 
graph the life and society of Ravenna as it had been 
photographed in the book in question must have resided 
there and lived in the midst of it for some time. But I 
never was in Ravenna for a longer time than a week in 
my life. 

It was many years after the visit of George Eliot and 
Mr. Lewes to my house at Ricorboli that I and my wife 
visited them at The Heights, Witley, in Surrey. I found 
that George Eliot had grown. She was evidently happier. 
There was the same specially quiet and one may say har- 
monious gentleness about her manner and her thought and 
her ways. But her outlook on life seemed to be a brighter, 
a larger, and, as I cannot doubt, a healthier one. She 
would no longer, I am well assured, have talked of re- 
gretting that she had been born. It would be to give an 
erroneous impression if I were to say that she seemed to 
be more in charity with all men, for assuredly I never 
knew her otherwise. But, if the words may be used, as I 
think they may be understood, without irreverence, or 
any meaning that would be akin to blasphemy, she seemed 



468 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

to me to be more in charity with her Creator. The ways 
of God to man had become more justified to her ; and her 
outlook as to the futurity of the world was a more hope- 
ful one. Of course optimism had with her to be long- 
sighted. But she seemed to have become reconciled to 
the certainty that he who stands on a lofty eminence must 
needs see long stretches of dusty road across the plains 
beneath him. 

Nothing could be more enjoyable than the evenings 
passed by the partie carree consisting of herself and Lewes, 
and my wife and myself. I am afflicted by hardness of 
hearing, which shuts me out from many of the pleas- 
ures of society. And George Eliot had that excellency in 
woman, a low voice. Yet, partly no doubt by dint of an 
exertion which her kindness prompted, but in great meas- 
ure from the perfection of her dainty articulation, I was 
able to hear her more perfectly than I generally hear any- 
body. One evening Mr. and Mrs. Du Maurier joined us. 
The Leweses had a great regard for Mr. Du Maurier, and 
spoke to us in a most feeling way of the danger which had 
then recently threatened the eyesight of that admirable 
artist. We had music ; and Mr. Du Maurier sang a drink- 
ing-song, accompanying himself on the piano. George 
Eliot had specially asked for this song, saying, I remem- 
ber, " A good drinking-song is the only form of intem- 
perance I admire." 

I think also that Lewes seemed in higher spirits than 
when I had been with him at Florence. But this was no 
more than an additional testimony to the fact that she was 
happier. 

She also was, I take it, in better health, for we had some 
most delightful walks over the exceptionally beautiful 
country in the neighborhood of their house, to a greater 
extent than she would, I think, have been capable of at 
Florence. 

One day we made a most memorable excursion to visit 
Tennyson at Black Down. It was the first time I had 
ever seen him. He walked with us round his garden, and 
to a point finely overlooking the country below, charm- 
ingly varied by cultivated land, meadow, and woodland. 



MR. AND MRS. LEWES. 469 

It was a magnificent day ; but as I looked over the land- 
scape I thought I understood why the woods, which one 
looks down on from a similar Italian height, are called 
macchie — stains — whereas our ordinarily more picturesque 
language knows no such term and no such image. In 
looking over a widespread Italian landscape one is struck 
by the accuracy and picturesque truth of the image ; but 
it needs the sun and the light and the atmosphere of Italy 
to produce the contrast of light and shade which justifies 
the phrase. 

Our friends were evidently personce gratce at the court 
of the laureate; and after our walk he gave us the ex- 
quisite treat of reading to us the just completed manu- 
script of *'Rizpah." And how he read it ! Everybody 
thinks that he has been impressed by that wonderful poem 
to the full extent of the effect that it is capable of pro- 
ducing. They would be astonished at the increase of 
weird terror which thrills the hearer of the poet's own 
recital of it. 

He was very good-natured about it. It was explained 
to him by George Eliot that I should not be able to enjoy 
the reading unless I were close to him, so he placed me by 
his side. He detected me availing myself of that posi- 
tion to use my good eyes as well as my bad ears, and pro- 
tested ; but on my appeal ad miseincordiam, and assurance 
that I should so enjoy the promised treat to infinitely 
greater effect, he allowed me to look over his shoulder as 
he read. After " Rizpah " he read the " Northern Cob- 
bler " to us, also with wonderful effect. The difference 
between reading the printed lines and hearing them so 
read is truly that between looking on a black-and-white 
engraving and the colored picture from which it has been 
taken. Another thing also struck me. The provincial 
dialect, which, when its peculiarities are indicated by let- 
ters, looks so uncouth as to be sometimes almost puzzling, 
seemed to produce no difficulty at all as he read it, though 
he in no wise mitigated it in the least. It seemed the ab- 
solutely natural and necessary presentation of the thoughts 
and emotions to be rendered. It was, in fact, a dramatic 
rendering of them of the highest order. 



470 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

I remember with equal vividness hearing Lowell read 
some of his "Biglow Papers" in the drawing-room of my 
valued friend Arthur Dexter, of Boston, when there were 
no others present save him and his mother and my wife 
and myself. And that also was a great treat ; that also 
was the addition of color to the black-and-white of the 
printed page. But the difference between reading and 
hearing was not so great as in the case of the laureate. 

When, full of the delight that had been afforded us, we 
were taking our leave of him, our host laid on us his strict 
injunctions to say no word to any one of what we had 
heard, adding with a smile that was half 7iaif, half fun- 
ning, and wholly comic, "The newspaper fellows, you 
know, would get hold of the story, and they would not do 
it as well !" 

And then our visit to the Leweses in their lovely home 
drew to an end, and we said our farewells, little thinking 
as we four stood in that porch that we should never in 
this world look on their faces more. 

The history of George Eliot's intellect is to a great ex- 
tent legible in her books. But there are thousands of her 
readers in both hemispheres who would like to possess a 
more concrete image of her in their minds — an image 
which should give back the personal peculiarities of face, 
voice, and manner, that made up her outward form and 
semblance. I cannot pretend to the power of creating 
such an image ; but I may record a few traits which 
will be set down, at all events, as truthfully as I can give 
them. 

She was not, as the world in general is aware, a hand- 
some, or even a personable woman. Her face was long ; 
the eyes not large nor beautiful in color — they were, I 
think, of a grayish blue — the hair, which she wore in old- 
fashioned braids coming low down on either side of her 
face, of a rather light brown. It was streaked with gray 
when last I saw her. Her figure was of middle height, 
large-boned, and. powerful. Lewes often said that she in- 
herited from her peasant ancestors a frame and constitu- 
tion originally very robust. Her head was finely formed, 
with a noble and well-balanced arch from brow to crown. 



MR. AND MRS. LEWES. 47 1 

The lips and mouth possessed a power of infinitely varied 
expression. George Lewes once said to me when I made 
some observation to the effect that she had a sweet face 
(I meant that the face expressed great sweetness). "You 
might say what a sweet hundred faces ! I look at her 
sometimes in amazement. Her countenance is constantly 
changing." The said lips and mouth were distinctly sensu- 
ous in form and fulness. 

She has been compared to the portraits of Savonarola 
(who was frightful) and of Dante (who though stern and 
bitter-looking was handsome). Something there was of 
both faces in George Eliot's physiognomy. Lewes told us, 
in her presence, of the exclamation uttered suddenly by 
some one to whom she was pointed out at a place of pub- 
lic entertainment — I believe it was at a Monday Popular 
Concert in St. James's Hall. " That," said a bystander, 
"is George Eliot." The gentleman to whom she was 
thus indicated gave one swift, searching look and ex- 
claimed sotto voce, " Dante's aunt !" Lewes thought this 
happy, and he recognized the kind of likeness that was 
meant to the great singer of the Divine Comedy. She 
herself playfully disclaimed any resemblance to Savona- 
rola. But, although such resemblance was very distant — 
Savonarola's peculiarly unbalanced countenance being a 
strong caricature of hers — some likeness there was. 

Her speaking voice was, I think, one of the most beautiful 
I ever heard, and she used it conscientiously^ if I may say 
so. I mean that she availed herself of its modulations to 
give thrilling emphasis to what was profound in her utter- 
ances, and sweetness to what was gentle or playful. She 
bestowed great care, too, on her enunciation, disliking the 
slipshod mode of pronouncing which is so common. I 
have several times heard her declare with enthusiasm that 
ours is a beautiful language, a noble language even to the 
ear, when properly spoken ; and imitate with disgust the 
short, snajypy, inarticulate way in which many people utter 
it. There was no touch of pedantry or affectation in her 
own measured, careful speech, although I can well imagine 
that she might have been accused of both by those per- 
sons — unfortunately more numerous than could be de- 



472 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

sired — who seem to take it for granted that all differ- 
ence from one's neighbor, and especially a difference in 
the direction of superiority, must be affected. 

It has been thought by some persons that the influence 
of George Henry Lewes on her literary work was not a 
fortunate one, that he fostered too much the scientific bent 
of her mind to the detriment of its artistic richness. I do 
not myself hold this opinion. I am even inclined to think 
that but for his companionship and encouragement she might 
possibly never have written fiction at all. It is, I believe, im- 
possible to overestimate the degree to which the sunshine 
of his complete and understanding sympathy and his ador- 
ing affection developed her literary powers. She has writ- 
ten something to this effect — perhaps more than once ; I 
have not her biography at hand at this moment for refer- 
ence — in a letter to Miss Sara Hennell. And no one who 
saw them together in anything like intimate intercourse 
could doubt that it was true. As I have said before, 
Lewes worshipped her, and it is considered a somewhat un- 
wholesome experience to be worshipped. Fortunately the 
process is not so common as to constitute one of the dan- 
gers of life for the average human being. But in George 
Eliot's case I really believe the process was not deleterious. 
Her nature was at once stimulated and steadied by Lewes's 
boundless faith in her powers, and boundless admiration 
for their manifestation. Nor was it a case of sitting like 
an idol to be praised and incensed. Her own mental atti- 
tude towards Lewes was one of warm admiration. She 
thought most highly of his scientific attainments, whether 
well-foundedly or mistakenly I cannot pretend to gauge 
with accuracy. But she also admired and enjoyed the 
sparkling brightness of his talk, and the dramatic vivacity 
with which he entered into conversation and discussion, 
grave or gay. And on these points I may venture to re- 
cord my opinion that she was quite right. I always used 
to think that the touch of Bohemianism about Lewes 
had a special charm for her. It must have offered so 
piquant a contrast with the middle - class surroundings of 
her early life. I observed that she listened with great 
complacency to his talk of theatrical things and people. 



MR. AND MRS. LEWES. 473 

Lewes was fond of talking about acting and actors, and in 
telling stories of celebrated theatrical personages would 
imitate — half involuntarily, perhaps — their voice and man- 
ner. I remember especially his doing this with reference 
to Macready. 

Both of them loved music extremely. It was a curious, 
and, to me, rather pathetic study to watch Lewes — a man 
naturally self-sufficient (I do not use the word in any 
odious sense), of a combative turn of intellect, and with 
scarcely any diffidence in his nature — so humbly admit- 
ting, and even insisting upon, " Polly's " superiority to 
himself in every department. Once when he was walking 
with my wife in the garden of their house in Surrej^, she 
turned the conversation which had been touching other 
topics to speak of George Eliot. " Oh," said Lewes, stop- 
ping short and looking at her with those bright eyes of his, 
" Your blood be 07i your oio?i head! I didn't begin it ; 
but if you wish to speak of her, I am always ready." It 
was this complete candor, and the genuineness of his ad- 
miring love for her, which made its manifestations delight- 
ful, and freed them from offence, 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

LETTEKS FKOM MR. AND MRS. LEWES. 

I HAVE a great many letters from G. H. Lewes, and 
from George Eliot. Many of the latter are addressed to 
ray wife. And many, especially of those from Lewes, re- 
lating as they do mainly to matters of literary business, 
though always containing characteristic touches, are not 
of sufficient general interest to make it worth while to 
transcribe them for publication. In no case is there any 
word in any of them that would make it expedient to 
withhold them on any other ground. I might, perhaps, 
have introduced them into my narrative as nearly as pos- 
sible at the times to which chronologically they refer. 
But it has seemed to me so probable that there may be 
many readers who may be glad of an opportunity of see- 
ing these letters without feeling disposed to give their 
time to the rest of these volumes, that I have thought it 
best to throw them together in this place. 

I will begin with one written from Blandford Square, 
by George Eliot, to me, which is of great interest. It 
bears no date whatever, save that of place ; but the sub- 
ject of it dates it with considerable accuracj^ 

"Dear Mr. Trollope, — I am very grateful to you for your notes. Con- 
cerning netto di specchio, I have found a passage in Varchi which decides 
the point according to your impression. [Passages equally decisive might 
be found passim in the old Florentine historians. And I ought to have 
referred her to them. But as she had altogether mistaken the meaning 
of the phrase, I had insinuated my correction as little presumptuously as I 
could.] 

*' My inference had been gathered from the vague use of the term to ex- 
press disqualification [^. e., non netto dispecchio expressed disqualification]. 
But I find from Varchi, b. viii., that the specchio in question was a public 
book, in which the names of all debtors to the Commune were entered. 
Thus your doubt [no doubt at all !] has been a very useful caveat to me. 

"Concerning the Bardi, my authority for making them originally joojoo- 
lani is G. Villani. He says, c. xxxix., ' e gia cominciavano a venire possenti 



LETTERS FROM MR. AXD MRS. LEWES. 475 

i Frescohaldi e Bardi e Mozzi ma di piccolo cominciaraento.' And c. 
Ixxxi., 'e guesti furono le principale case de' Guelfi die u^cirono di Fi- 
renze. Del Sesto </' Oltr'' Ai-no, i Hossi, JVerli, e parte f/e' Manelli^ Bardi, e 
Frescohaldi di Popoloni dal detto Sesto, case nobili Canigiani,^ etc. These 
passages corrected my previous impression that they were originally Lom- 
bard nobles. 

[It needs some familiarity with the Florentine chroniclers to understand 
that the words quoted by no means indicate that the families named were 
not of patrician origin. "There walked into the lobby with the Radicals, 

Lord and Mr. ," would just as much prove that the persons named 

had not belonged to the class of landowners. But the passage is interest- 
ing as showing the great care she took to make -her Italian novel histori- 
cally accurate. And it is to be remembered that she came to the subject 
absolutely new to it. She would have known otherwise, that the Case 
situated in the Oltr' Arno quarter were almost all noble. That ward of 
the city was the Florentine quartier St. Germain.'] 

" Concerning the phrase in piazza, and in mercato, my choice of them was 
partly founded on the colloquial usage as represented by Sacchetti, whose 
dialogue is intensely idiomatic. Also in piazza is, I believe, used by the 
historians (I think even by Macchiavelli), when speaking of popular turn- 
outs. The ellipse took my fancy because of its colloquial stamp. But I 
gather from your objection that it seems too barbarous in a modern Ital- 
ian ear. Will you whisper your final opinion in Mr. Lewes's ear on Mon- 
day ? 

[I do not remember what the ellipse in question was. As regards the 
use of the phrase in piazza she is perfectly right. The term keeps the 
same meaning to the present day, and is equivalent in political language to 
the street.] 

" Boto was used on similar grounds, and as it is recognized by the Voc. 
della Cricsca, I think I may venture to keep it, having a weakness for those 
indications of the processes by which language is modified. 

\_Boto for voto is a Florentinism which may be heard to the present day, 
though the vast majority of strangers would never hear it, or understand 
it if they did. George Eliot, no doubt, met with it in some of those old 
chroniclers who wrote exactly as not only the lower orders, but the gener- 
ality of their fellow-citizens, were speaking around them. And her use of 
it testifies to the minuteness of her care to reproduce the form and press- 
ure of the time of which she was writing.] 

" Once more thank you, though my gratitude is in danger of looking too 
much like a lively sense of anticipated favors, for I mean to ask you to 
take other trouble yet. Yours very truly, Marian E. Lewes." 

The following letter, written from Blandford Square on 
the 5th July, 186 J, is, as regards the first three pages, 
from him, and the last from her : 

" My dear Trollope, — We have now read 'La Beata' [my first novel], 
and must tell you how charmed we have been with it. Mna herself is 



476 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

perfectly exquisite and individual, and her story is full of poetry and pa- 
thos. Also, one feels a breath from the Val d' Arno rustling amid the 
pages, and a sense of Florentine life, such as one rarely gets out of books. 
The critical objection I should make to it, apart from minor points, is that 
often you spoil the artistic attitude by adopting a critical antagonistic at- 
titude, by which I mean that, instead of painting the thing objectively, 
you present it critically, vnth an eye to the opinions likely to be formed by 
certain readers ; thus, instead of relying on the simple presentation of the 
fact of Nina's innocence, you call tip the objection you desire to anticipate 
by side glances at the worldly and 'knowing' reader's opinions. In a 
word, I feel as if you were not engrossed by your subject, but were suffi- 
ciently aloof from it to contemplate it as a spectator, which is an error in 
art. Many of the remarks are delicately felt and finely written. The 
whole book comes from a noble nature, and so it impresses the reader. 
But I may tell you what Mrs. Carlyle said last night, which will in some 
sense corroborate what I have said. In her opinion you would have done 
better to make two books of it, one the love-story, and one a description 
of Florentine life. She admires the book very much I should add. Now, 
although I cannot by any means agree with that criticism of hers, I fancy 
the origin of it was some such feeling as I have endeavored to indicate in 
saying you are often critical when you should be simply objective. 

" We had a pleasant journey home over the St. Gothard, and found our 
boy very well and happy at Hofwyl, and our bigger boy ditto awaiting us 
here. Polly is very well, and, as you may imagine, talks daily of Florence 
and our delightful trip, our closer acquaintance with you and yours being 
among the most delightful of our reminiscences. 

" Yesterday Anthony dined with us, and, as he had never seen Carlyle, 
he was glad to go down with us to tea at Chelsea. Carlyle had read and 
ag^^eed vi'iih. the West Indian book, and the two got on very well together; 
both Carlyle and ilrs. Carlyle liking Anthony, and I suppose it was recip- 
rocal, though I did not see him afterwards to hear what he thought. He 
had to run away to catch his train. 

•' He told us of the sad news of Mrs. Browning's death. Poor Brown- 
ing ! That was my first, and remains my constant reflection. When peo- 
ple love each other and have lived together any time they ought to die to- 
gether. For myself I should not care in the least about dying. The 
dreadful thing to me would be to live after losing, if I should ever lose, 
the one who has made life for me. Of course you who all knew and val- 
ued her will feel the loss, but I cannot think of anybody's grief but his. 

" The next page nmst be left for Polly's postscript, so I shall only send 
my kindest regards and wishes to Mrs. Trollope and the biggest of kisses 
to la cantatrice [my poor girl Bice]. 

"Ever faithfully yours, G. H. Lewes." 

"Dear Mrs. Trollope, — While I am reading 'La Beata' I constantly 
feel as if Mr. Trollope were present telling it all to me viva voce. It 
seems to me more thoroughly and fully like himself than any of his other 
books. And in spite of our liaving had the most of his society away from 



LETTERS FROM MR. AND MRS. LEWES. 477 

you [on our Camaldoli excursion], you are always part of his presence 
to me in a hovering, aerial fashion. So it seems quite natural that a let- 
ter addressed to him should have a postscript addressed to you. Pray 
reckon it among the good you do in this world that you come very often 
into our thoughts and conversation. We see comparatively so fcAv people 
that we are apt to recur to recollections of those we like best with almost 
childish frequency, and a little fresh news about you would be a welcome 
variety, especially the news that you had quite shaken off that spine indis- 
position which was still clinging to you that last morning when we said 
our good-byes. We have enough knowledge about you and your world to 
interpret all the details you can give us. But our words about our own 
home doings would be very vague and colorless to you. You must always 
imagine us coming to see you and wanting to know as much about you as 
we can, and like a charming hostess gratify that want. I must thank you 
for the account of Cavour in The Athenceum^ which stirred me strongly. 
I am afraid I have what TJie Saturday Revieiv would call ' a morbid delight 
in deathbeds' — not having reached that lofty superiority which considers 
it bad taste to allude to them. 

" How is Beatrice, the blessed and blessing ? That will always be a 
history to interest us — how her brown hair darkens, how her voice deep- 
ens and strengthens, and how you get more and more delight in her. I 
need send no separate message to Mr. Ti'ollope before I say that 
" I am always yours, with lively remembrance, 

"Marian E. Lewes." 

It needed George Eliot's fine and minute handwriting 
to put all this into one page of note-paper. 

The next letter that came from Blandford Square, dated 
9th December, 1861, was also a joint one, the larger por- 
tion of which, however, is from her pen : 

"Dear Good People, — If your ears burn as often as you are talked 
about in this house there must be an unpleasant amount of aural circula- 
tion to endure ! And as the constant refrain is, ' Really we must write to 
them that they may not altogether slip away from us,' I have this morn-^ 
ing screwed my procrastination to the writing-desk. 

" First and foremost, let us know how you are, and what are the results 
of the bathing. Then a word as to the new novel, or any other work, will be 
acceptable. I lend about ' La Beata ' in all good quarters, and always hear 
golden opinions from all sorts of people. Of course, you hear from An- 
thony. Is he prosperous and enjoying his life? The book will have an 
enormous sale just now ; but I fancy he will find more animosity and less 
friendliness than he expected, to judge from the state of exasperation 
against the Britisher, which seems to be general. 

" We have been pursuing the even baritone — I wish I could say tenor — 
of our way. My health became seriously alarming in September, so we 
went off to Malvern for a fortnight ; and there the mountain air, exercise, 
and regular diet set me up, so that I have been in better training for work 



478 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

than I had been for a long while. Polly has not been strong, yet not ma- 
terially amiss ; but, as she will add a postscript to this, I shall leave her 
to speak for herself. 

" In your (T. A. T.) book huntings, if you could lay your hand on a copy 
of Herraolaus Barbarus, 'Compendium Scientiae Naturalis,' 1553, or any 
of Telesio's works, think of me and pounce on them. I was going to 
bother you about the new edition of Galileo, but fortunately I fell in with 
the Milan edition cheap, and contented myself with that. Do you know 
what there is new in the Florentine edition ? I suppose you possess it, as 
you do so many enviable books. 

" We heard the other day that Miss Blagden had come to stay in Lon- 
don for the winter, so Polly sent a message to her to say how glad we 
should be to see her. If she comes she will bring us some account of 
casa Trollope. 

" When you next pass Giotto's tower salute it for me ; it is one of my 
dearest Florentines, and always beckoning to us to come back. 

" Ever your faithful friend, G. H. Lewes." 

She writes : 

" Dear Friends, — Writing letters or asking for them is not always the 
way to make one's memory agreeable, but you are not among those people 
who shudder at letters, since you did say you would like to hear from us, 
and let us hear from you occasionally. I have no good news to tell about 
myself; but to have my husband back again and enjoying his work is 
quite enough happiness to fall to one woman's share in this world, where 
the stock of happiness is so moderate and the claimants so many. He is 
deep in Aristotle's ' Natural Science ' as the first step in a history of sci- 
ence, whicli he has for a long while been hoping that he should be able to 
write. So you will understand his demand for brown folios. Indeed, he 
is beginning to have a slight contempt for authors sufficiently known to 
the vulgar to be inserted in biographical dictionaries. Hermolaus Barba- 
rus is one of those distinguished by omission in some chief works of that 
kind ; and we learned to our surprise from a don at Cambridge that he 
had never heard the name. Let us hope there is an Olympus for forgot- 
ten authors. 

" Our trial of the water-cure at Malvern made us think with all the more 
emphasis of the possible effect on a too delicate and fragile friend at Flor- 
ence. [My wife.] It really helped to mend George. And as I hope 

the Florentine hydropathist may not be a quack, as Dr. at Malvern 

certainly is, I shall be disappointed if there is no good effect to be traced 
to ' judicious packing and sitz baths ' that you can tell us of. Did Beatrice 
enjoy her month's dissipation at Leghorn? And is the voice prospering ? 
Don't let her quite forget us. We make rather a feeble attempt at musi- 
cal Saturday evenings, having a new grand piano, which stimulates musical 
desires. But we want a good violin and violoncello — difficult to be found 
among amateurs. Having no sunshine, one needs music all the more. It 
would be difficult for you to imagine very truthfully what sort of atmos- 
phere we have been living in here in London for the last month — warm, 



LETTERS FROM MR. AND MRS. LEWES. 479 

heavy, dingy gray. I have seen some sunshine once — in a dream. Do 
tell us all you can about yourselves. It seems only the other day that we 
were shaking you by the hand ; and all details will be lit up as if by your 
very voice and looks. Say a kind word for me sometimes to the bright- 
eyed lady by whose side I sat in your balcony the evening of the national 
Fete. At the moment I cannot recall her name. We are now going to 
the British Museum to read — a fearful way of getting knowledge. If I 
had Aladdin's lamp I should certainly use it to get books served up to me 
at a moment's notice. It may be better to search for truth than to have it 
at hand without seeking, but with books I should take the other alterna- 
tive. Ever yours, M. E. Lewes." 

The lady in the balcony spoken of in the above letter 
was Signora Mignaty, the niece of Sir Frederick Adam, 
whom I had known long years 'previously in Rome, and 
who had married Signor Mignaty, a Greek artist, and was 
(and is) living in Florence. She was, in fact, the niece of 
the Greek lady Sir Frederick married. I remember her 
aunt, a very beautiful woman. The niece, Signorina Mar- 
gherita Albani as she was when I first knew her at eigh- 
teen years old in Rome, inherited so much of the beauty 
of her race that the Roman artists were constantly implor- 
ing, her to sit for them. She has made herself known in 
the literary world by several works, especially by a recent 
book on Correggio, his life and works, published in French. 

The next letter from Lewes, written from Blandford 
Square on the 2d June, without date of year, but probably 
1863, is of more interest to myself than to the public. 
But I may perhaps be permitted to indulge my vanity by 
publishing it as a testimony that his previous praise of 
what I had written was genuine, and not merely the laud- 
atory compliments of a correspondent. 

*' My dear Trollope, — Enclosed is the proof you were good enough to 
say you would correct. When am I to return the compliment ? 

" I have finished ' Marietta.' Its picture of Italian life is extremely 
vivid and interesting, but it is a long way behind ' La Beata ' in interest of 
story. I have just finished one volume of Anthony's ' America,' and am 
immensely pleased with it — so much so that I hope to do something tow- 
ards counteracting the nasty notice in the Saturday. 

"Ever yours faithfully, G. H. Lewes." 

The next letter is from Lewes, dated " The Priory, North 
Bank, Regent's Park, 20th March, 1864 : 



480 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

" My dear Trollope, — My eldest boy, who spends his honeymoon in 
Florence (is not that sugaring jam tart ?), brings you this greeting from 
your silent but affectionate friends. Tell him all particulars about your- 
selves, and he will transmit them in his letters to us. First and foremost 
about the health of your wife, and how this bitter winter has treated her. 
Next about Bice, and then about yourself. 

"We rejoice in the prospect of your 'History of Florence,' and I am 
casting about, hoping to find somebody to review it worthily for the Fort- 
nightly Revieiv. By the way, would not you or your wife help me there 
also ? Propose your subjects ! 

"I hope you will like our daughter. She is a noble creature; and 
Charles is a lucky dog (his father's luck) to get such a wife. 

" We have been and are in a poor state of health, but manage to scram- 
ble on. Charles will tell you all there is to tell. With our love to your 
dear wife and Bice, 

" Believe me, ever faithfully yours, G. H. Lewes." 

Shortly after receiving this my wife had a letter from 
George Eliot, from Venice, dated 15th May, 1864. She 
writes from the " Hotel de Ville." 

" My dear Mrs. Trollope, — I wonder whether you are likely to be at 
Lake Como next month, or at any other place that we could take on our 
way to the Alps. It would make the prospect of our journey homeward 
much pleasanter if we could count on seeing you for a few hours ; and I 
will not believe that you will think me troublesome if I send the question 
to you. I am rather discontented with destiny that she has not let us see 
anything of you for nearly three years. And I hope you too will not be 
sorry to take me by the hand again. 

" My ground for supposing it not unlikely that you will be at one of the 
lakes, is the report I heard from Mr. Pigott, that such a plan was hover- 
ing in your mind. My chief fear is that our return, which is not likely at 
the latest to be later than the middle of June, may be too early for us to 
find you. 

" We reached Venice three days ago, after a short stay at Milan, and 
have the delight of finding everything more beautiful than it was to us 
four years ago. That is a satisfactory experience to us, who are getting 
old, and are afraid of the traditional loss of glory on the grass and all 
else, with which melancholy poets threaten us. 

" Mr. Lewes says I am to say the sweetest things that can be said with 
propriety to you, and love to Bice, to whose memory he appeals, in spite of 
all the friends she has made since he had the last kiss from her. 

" I too have love to send to Bice, whom I expect to see changed like a 
lily-bud to something more definitely promising. Mr. Trollope, I suppose, 
is in England by this time, else I should say all affectionate regards from 
us both to him. I am writing under difficulties. 

" Ever, dear Mrs. Trollope, very sincerely yours, 

*" M. E. Lewes. 



LETTERS FROM MR. AND MRS. LEWES. 481 

Here is another from Lewes, which the postmark only 
shows to have been written in 1865 : 

" My dear Trollope, — Thank Signor for the offer of his paper, 

and express to him my regret that in the present crowded state of the Re- 
vieio I cannot find a place for it. Don't you, however, run away with the 
idea that I don't want your contributions on the same ground ! The fact 

is 's paper is too wordy and heavy and not of suflBcient interest for 

our pubUcation ; and as I have a great many well on hand, I am forced to 
be particular. Originally my fear was lest we should not get contributors 
enough. That fear has long vanished. But good contributions are always 
scarce ; so don't you fall me. 

"We have been at Tunbridge Wells for a fortnight's holiday. I was 
forced to 'cave in,' as the Yankees say — regularly beat, I am not very 
flourishing now, but I can go into harness again. Polly has been, and, 
alas ! still is, anything but in a satisfactory state. But she is gestating, 
and gestation with her is always perturbing. I wish the book were done, 
with all my heart. 

" I don't think I ever told you how very much your ' History of Flor- 
ence ' interested me. I am shockingly ignorant of the subject, and not at 
all competent to speak, except as one of the public ; but you made tlie 
political life of the people clear to me. I only regretted here and there a 
newspaper style which was not historic. Oscar Browning has sent me his 
review, but I have not read it yet. It is at the printer's. Polly sends her 
love. Ever faithfully yours, G. H. L." 

He writes again, dating his letter 1st January, 1866, but 
postmarked 1865. It is singular that the date as given 
by the writer, 1866, must have been right, and that given 
by the postmark, 1865, wrong. And the fact may possi- 
bly some day be useful to some counsel having to struggle 
against the evidence of a postmark. The letter com- 
mences : 

"My dear Trollope, — A happy new year to you and Bice !" 

It is quite impossible that Lewes could have so written, 
while my wife, Theodosia, so great a favorite with both 
him and his wife, and so constantly inquired for tenderly 
by them, was yet alive. I lost her on the 13th of April, 
1865. It is certain, therefore, that Lewes's letter was writ- 
ten in 1866, and not, as the postmark declares, in 1865. 
After speaking of some literary business matters, the let- 
ter goes on : 

**And when am I to receive those articles from you which you pro- 
21 



482 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

jected ? I suppose other work keeps you ever on the stretch. But so ac- 
tive a man must needs ' fulfil himself in many ways.' 

" We have been ailing constantly without being ill, but our work gets on 
somehow or other. Polly is misei-able over a new novel, and I am happy 
over the very hard work of a new edition of my ' History of Philosophy,' 
which will almost be a new book, so great are the changes and additions. 
Polly sends her love to you and Bice. 

" Yours very faithfully, G. H. Lewes." 

Then after a long break, and after a new phase of my 
life had commenced, Lewes writes on the 14th of January, 
1869, from "21 North Bank :" 

" Dear T. T., — We did not meet in Germany because our plans were al- 
together changed. We passed all the time in the Black Forest, and came 
home through the Oberland. I did write to Salzburg, however, and per- 
haps the letter is still there ; but there was nothing in it. 

" You know how fond we are of you, and the pleasure it always gives us 
to get a glimpse of you. (Not that we have not also very pleasant associa- 
tions with your wife,* but she is as yet stranger to us of course.) But we 
went away in search of complete repose. And in the Black Forest there 
was rrot a soul to speak to, and we liked it so much as to stay on there. 

" We contemplate moving southwards in the spring, and if we go to 
Italy and come near Florence, we shall assuredly make a detour and come 
and see you. Polly wants to see Arezzo and Perugia. And I suppose we 
can still get a vetturino to take us that way to Rome ? Don't want rail- 
ways, if to be avoided. I don't think we can get away before March, for 
my researches are so absorbing that, if health holds out, I must go on ; if 
not, we shall pack up earlier. The worst of Lent is that one gets no thea- 
tres, and precisely because we never go to the theatre in London we hugely 
enjoy it abroad. Yesterday we took the child of a friend of ours to a 
morning performance of the pantomime, and are utterly knocked up in 
consequence. Somehow or other abroad the theatre agrees with us. 
Polly sends the kindest remembrances to you and your wife. Whenever 
you want anything done in London, consider me an idle man. 

"Ever yours faithfully, G. H. Lewes." 

And on the 2Sth February, in the same year, accord- 
ingly he writes : 

" Touching our visit to Florence, you may be sure we could not lightly 
forego such a pleasure. We start to-morrow, and unless v/e are recalled 
by my mother's health, we calculate being with you about the end of 
March. But we shall give due warning of our arrival. We both look 
forward to this holiday, and ' languish for the purple seas ;' though the 

* I had married ray second wife on the 29th of October, 1866. 



LETTERS FROM MR. AND MRS. LEWES. 433 

high winds now howl a threat of anything but a pleasant crossing to Ca- 
lais. Che! Che! One must pay for one's pleasure! With both of our 
warmest salutations to you and yours, 

" Believe me, yours faithfully, G. H. Lewes." 

The travellers must, however, have reached us some 
days before the end of March, for I have a letter to my 
wife from George Eliot, dated from Naples on the 1st of 
April, 1869, after they had left us. She w^rites : 

*' My dear Mrs. Trollope, — The kindness which induces you to shelter 
travellers will make you willing to hear something of their subsequent 
fate. And I am the more inclined to send you some news of ourselves 
because I have nothing dismal to tell. We bore our long journey better 
than we dared to expect, for the night was made short by sleep in our 
large coupe, and during the day we had no more than one headache be- 
tween us. Mr. Lewes really looks better, and has lost his twinges. And 
though pleasure-seekers are notoriously the most aggrieved and howling 
inhabitants of the universe, we can allege nothing against our lot here 
but the persistent coldness of the wind, which is in dangerously sudden 
contrast with the warmth of the sunshine whenever one gets on the wrong 
side of a wall. This prevents us from undertaking any carriage expedi- 
tions, which is rather unfortunate, because such expeditions are among 
the chief charms of Naples. We have not been able to renew our old 
memories of that sort at all, except by a railway journey to Pompeii ; and 
our days are spent in the museum and in the sunniest out-of-door spots. 
We have been twice to the San Carlo, which we were the more pleased 
to do, because when we were here before that fine theatre was closed. 
The singing is so-so, and the tenor especially is gifted with limbs rather 
than with voice or ear. But there is a baritone worth hearing, and a so- 
prano whom the Neapolitans delight to honor with hideous sounds of 
applause, 

" We are longing for a soft wind, which wall allow us to take the long 
drive to Baise during one of our remaining days here. At present we 
think of leaving for Rome on Sunday or Monday. But our departure will 
probably be determined by an answer from the landlord of the Hotel de 
Minerva, to whom Mr. Lewes has written. We have very comfortable 
quarters here, out of the way of that English and American society, whose 
charms you can imagine. Our private dinner is well served; and I am 
glad to be away from the Chiaja, except — the exception is a great one — 
for the sake of the sunsets which I should have seen there. 

" Mr. Lewes has found a book by an Italian named Franchi, formerly 
a priest, on the present condition of philosophy in Italy. He emerges 
from its depths — or shallows — to send his best remembrances ; and to 
Bice he begs especially to recommend Plantation Bitters. 

" I usually think all the more of things and places the farther I get 
from them, and, on that ground, you will understand that at Naples I 
think of Florence, and the kindness I found there under mv small raise- 



484 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

ries. Pray offer my kind regards to Miss Blagden when you see lier, and 
tell her that I hope to shake hands with her in London this spring. 

" We shall obey Mr. TroUope's injunctions to write again from Perugia 
or elsewhere, according to wir route homeward. But pray warn him that 
when my throat is not sore, and my head not stagnant, I am a much fiercer 
antagonist. It is perhaps a delight to one's egoism to hav3 a friend who 
is among the best of men with the worst of theories. One can be at once 
affectionate and spit-fire. Pray remember me with indulgence, all of you, 
and believe, dear Mrs. Trollope, 

" Most truly yours, M. E. Lewes." 

It will be seen from the above that George Eliot had 
very quickly fraternized — what is the feminine form ? — 
with my second wife, as I, without any misgivings, fore- 
saw would be the case. Indeed, subsequent circumstances 
allowed a greater degree of intimacy to grow up between 
them than had been possible in the case of my Bice's 
mother, restricted as her intercourse with the latter had 
been by failing health, and the comparative fewness of 
the hours they had passed together. Neither she nor 
Lewes had ever passed a night under my roof until I re- 
ceived them in the villa at Ricorboli, where I lived with 
my second wife. 

What was the subject of the "antagonism" to which 
the above letter alludes I have entirely forgotten. In 
all probability we differed on some subject of politics,* 
by reason of the then rapidly maturing Conservatism 
which my outlook ahead forced upon me. Nevertheless, 
it would seem from some words in a letter written to me 
by Lewes in the November of 1869, that my political here- 
sies were not deemed deeply damning. There was a ques- 
tion of my undertaking the foreign correspondence of a 
London paper, which came to nothing till some four years 
later, under other circumstances ; and with reference to 
that project he writes : 

"Polly and I were immensely pleased at the prospect for you. She 
■was rejoiced that you should once more be giving yourself to public af- 
fairs, which you so well understand. . . . We are but just come back from 

* My wife, on reading this passage, tells me that according to her rec- 
ollection the differences in question had no reference to politics at all, but 
to matters of higher interest, relating to man's ultimate destinies. 



LETTERS OF MR. AND MRS. LEWES. 485 

the solitudes of a farm-house in Surrey, whither I took Polly immediately 
after our loss [of his son], of which I suppose Anthony told you. It had 
shaken her seriously. She had lavished almost a mother's love on the 
dear boy, and suffered a mother's grief in tl»e bereavement. He died in 
her arms ; and for a long while it seemed as if she could never get over 
the pain. But now she is calm again, though very sad. But she will get 
to work, and that will aid her. 

"For me, I was as fully prepared (by three or four months' conviction 
of its inevitableness) as one can be in such cases. It is always sudden, 
however foreseen. Yet the preparation was of great use; and I now 
have only a beautiful image living with me, and a deep thankfulness that 
his sufferings are at an end, since recovery was impossible. 

** Give my love to your wife and Bice, and believe ever in yours faith- 
fully, G. H." Lewes." 

The following highly interesting letter was written to 
my wife by Mrs. Lewes, about a year after his death. 
It is dated *'The Priory, 19 December, 1879," 

" Dear Mrs. Trollope, — In sending me Dr. Haller's words you have 
sent me a great comfort, A just appreciation of ray husband's work from 
a competent person is what I am most athirst for; and Dr. Haller has 
put his finger on a true characteristic. I only wish he could print some- 
thing to the same effect in any pages that would be generally read. 

"There is no biography. An article entitled 'George Henry Lewes' 
appeared in the last New London Quarterly. It was written by a man 
for whom he had much esteem ; but it is not strong. A few facts about 
the early life and education are given with tolerable accuracy, but the 
estimate of the philosophic and scientific activity is inadequate. Still it 
is the best thing you could mention to Dr. Haller. You know perhaps 
that a volume entitled ' The Study of Psychology ' appeared in May last, 
and that another volume (500 pp.) of ' Problems of Life and Mind ' has 
just been published. The best history of a writer is contained in his 
writings ; these are his chief actions. If he happens to have left an au- 
tobiography telling (what nobody else can tell) how his mind grew, how 
it was determined by the joys, sorrows, and other influences of childhood 
and youth — that is a precious contribution to knowledge. But biogra- 
phies generally are a disease of English literature. 

'* I have never yet told you how grateful I was to you for writing to me 
a year ago. For a long while I could read no letter. But now I have 
read yours more than once, and it is carefully preserved. You had been 
with us in our happiness so near the time when it left me — you and your 
husband are peculiarly bound up with the latest memories. 

" You must have had a mournful summer. But Mr. Trollope's thorough 
recovery from his severe attack is a fresh proof of his constitutional 
strength. We cannot properly count age by years. See what Mr. Glad- 
stone does with seventy of them in his frame. And my lost one had but 
sixty-one and a half. 



486 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

"You are to come to England again in 1881, I remember, and then, if 
I am alive, I hope to see you. With best love to you both, always, dear 
Mrs. Trollope, Yours faithfully, M. E. Lewes." 

The " words of Dr. Haller," to which the above letter 
refers, were to the effect that one of Lewes's great ad- 
vantages in scientific and philosophical research was his 
familiar acquaintance with the works of German and 
French writers, which enabled him to follow the contempo- 
raneous movement of science throughout Europe, whereas 
many writers of learning and ability w^asted their own 
and their readers' time in investigating questions already 
fully investigated elsewhere, and advancing theories which 
had been previously proved or disproved without their 
knowledge. Dr. Ludwig Haller, of Berlin, in writing to 
me about G. H. Lewes, then recently deceased, had said, 
if I remember rightly, that he had some intention of pub- 
lishing a sketch of Lewes in some German periodical. I 
am not aw^are whether this intention was ever carried into 
effect. 

The attack to which the above letter alludes w^as a very 
bad one of sciatica. At length the baths of Baden in 
Switzerland cured me permanently, but after their — it is 
said ordinary and normal, but very perverse — fashion, 
having first made me incomparably worse. I suffered 
excruciatingly, consolingly (!) assured by the doctor that 
sciatica never kills — only makes yon wish that it would ! 
While I was at the worst my brother came to Baden to 
see me, and on leaving me after a couple of days, wrote 
to my wife the following letter, which I confiscated and 
keep as a memorial. 

After expressing his commiseration for me, he contin- 
ues : 

" For you, I cannot tell you the admiration I have for you. Your affec- 
tion and care and assiduity were to be expected. I knew you well enough 
to take them as a matter of course from you to him. But your mental 
and physical capacity, your power of sustaining him by your own cheer- 
fulness, and supporting him by your own attention, are marvellous. When 
I consider all the circumstances, I hardly know how to reconcile so much 
love with so much self-control." 

Every word true ! And what he saw for a few hours 



LETTERS FROM MR. AND MRS. LEWES. 487 

in each of a couple of days I saw every hour of the day 
jind night for four terrible months. 

' But all this is a parenthesis into which I have been led, 
I hope excusably, by Mrs. Lewes's mention of my illness. 

N.B. — I said at an early page of these recollections that 
I had never been confined to my bed by illness for a single 
day during more than sixty years. The above-mentioned 
illness leaves the statement still true. The sciatica was 
bad, but never kept me in bed. Indeed, I was perhaps 
in less torment out of it. 

Here is the last letter of George Eliot's which reached 
us. It is written by Mrs. Lewes to my wife, from " The 
Priory, 30 December, 1879 :" 

" Dear Mrs. Trollope, — I enclose the best photograph within my reach. 
To me all portraits of him are objectionable, because I see him more viv- 
idly and truly without tliem. But I think this is the most like what he 
was as 3^ou knew him. I have sent your anecdote about the boy to Mr. 
Du Maurier, whom it will suit exactly. I asked Charles Lewes to copy 
it from your letter with your own pretty words of introduction. 

"Yours affectionately, M. E. Lewes." 

It is pretty well too late in the day for me to lament 
the loss of old friends. They have been well-nigh some 
time past all gone. I have been exceptionally fortunate 
in an aftermath belonging to a younger generation. But 
they too are dropping around me ! And few losses from 
this second crop have left a more regret-ted void than 
George Henry Lewes and his wife. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

MY MOTHEE. — LETTERS OF MAKY MITFOED. LETTERS OP 

T. C. GRATTAN. 

I HAVE thought that it might be more convenient to 
the reader to have the letters contained in the foregoing 
chapter all together, and have not interrupted them there- 
fore to speak of any of the events which were meantime 
happening in my own life. 

But during the period which the letters cover the two 
greatest sorrows of my life had fallen upon me — I had 
lost first my mother, then my wife. 

The bereavement, however, was very different in tlie 
two cases. If my mother had died a dozen j^ears earlier I 
should have felt the loss as the end of all things to me — 
as leaving me desolate and causing a void which nothing 
could ever fill. But when she died at eighty-three she 
had lived her life, upon the w^hole a very happy one, to 
the happiness of w^hich I had (and have) the satisfaction 
of believing I largely contributed. 

It is very common for a mother and daughter to live 
during many years of life together in as close companion- 
ship as I lived with my mother, but it is not common for 
a son to do so. During many years, and many, many 
journeyings, and more tete-d-tete walks, and yet more of 
tete-d-tete home hours, we were inseparable companions 
and friends. I can truly say that, from the time when 
we put our horses together on my return from Birming- 
ham to the time of my marriage, she was all in all to me. 
During some four or five days in the early time of our 
residence at Florence I thought I was going to lose her, 
and I can never forget the blank wretchedness of the pros- 
pect that seemed to be before me. 

She had a very serious illness, and was, as I had subse- 



MY MOTHER. 489 

quently reason to believe, very mistakenly treated. She 
was attended by a practitioner of the old school, who had 
at that time the leading practice in Florence. He was a 
very good fellow, and an admirable w^hist-player ; and I 
do not think the members of our little colony drew a suf- 
ficiently sharp line of division between his social and his 
professional qualifications. He was, as I have said, essen- 
tially a man of the (even then) old school, and retained 
the old-fashioned general practitioner's phraseology. I 
remember his once mortally disgusting an unhappy dys- 
peptic old lady by asking her, " Do we go to our dinner 
with glee ?" As if the poor soul had ever done anything 
with glee ! , 

This gentleman had bled my mother, and had appointed 
another bleeding for the evening. I believe she would 
assuredly have died if that had been done, and I attribute 
to Lord Holland the saving of her. Her doctor had very 
wrongly resisted the calling in of other English advice, 
professional jealousy, and indeed enmity, running high 
just then among us. Lord Holland came to the house 
just in the nick of time ; and overruling authoritatively 
all the difficulties raised by the Esculapius in possession of 
the field, insisted on at once sending his own medical at- 
tendant. The result was the immediate administration of 
port wine instead of phlebotomy, and the patient's rapid 
recovery. 

My mother was at the time far past taking any part in 
the discussion of the medical measures to be adopted in 
her case. But I am not without a suspicion that she too, 
if she could have been consulted, would have sided with 
phlebotomy and whist, as against modern practice unre- 
lieved by any such alleviation. For the phlebotomist had 
been a constant attendant at her Friday night whist-table; 
and as it was she lost him, for he naturally was offended 
at her recovery under rival hands. 

What my mother was I have already said enough to 
show, as far as my imperfect words can show it, in divers 
passages of these reminiscences. She was the happiest- 
natured person I ever knew — happy in the intense power 
of enjoyment, happier still in the conscious exercise of the 
21* 



490 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

power of making others happy ; and this continued to be 
the case till nearly the end. During the last few years 
the bright lamp began to grow dim and gradually sink 
into the socket. She suffered but little physically, but 
she lost her memory, and then gradually more and 
more the powers of her mind generally. I have often 
thought that this perishing of the mind before the excep- 
tionally healthy and well-constituted physical frame in 
which it was housed may have been due to the tremen- 
dous strain to which she was subjected during those terri- 
ble months at Bruges, when she was watching the dying 
bed of a much-loved son during the day, and, dieted on 
green tea and laudanum, was writing fiction most part of 
the night. The cause, if such were the case, would have 
preceded the effect by some forty years ; but whether it 
is on the cards to suppose that such an effect may have 
been produced after such a length of time, I have not 
physiological knowledge enough to tell. 

She was, I think, to an exceptional degree surrounded 
by very many friends, mostly women, but including many 
men, at every period of her life. But the circumstances of 
it caused the world of her intimates during her youth, 
her middle life, and her old age to be to a great degree 
peopled by different figures. 

She was during all her life full of, and fond of, fun ; had 
an exquisite sense of humor ; and at all times valued her 
friends and acquaintances more exclusively, I think, than 
most people do, for their intrinsic qualities, mainly those 
of heart, and not so much perhaps intellect, accurately 
speaking, as brightness. There is a passage in my broth- 
er's " Autobiography " which grates upon my mind, and, 
I think, very signally fails to hit the mark. 

He writes (pp. 19, 20): " She had loved society, affecting 
a somewhat Liberal role, and professing an emotional dis- 
like to tyrants, which sprung from the wrongs of would-be 
regicides and the poverty of patriot exiles. An Italian 
marquis who had escaped with only a second shirt from 
the clutches of some archduke whom he had wished to ex- 
terminate, or a French proletaire with distant ideas of 
sacrificing himself to the cause of liberty, were always 



MY MOTHER. 49I 

welcome to the modest hospitality of her house. In af- 
ter-years, when marquises of another cast had been gra- 
cious to her, she became a strong Tory, and thought that 
archduchesses were sweet. But with her politics were 
always an affair of the heart, as indeed were all her con- 
victions. Of reasoning from causes I think that she knew 
nothing." 

Now there is hardly a word of this in which Anthony 
is not more or less mistaken ; and that simply because he 
had not adequate opportunities for close observation. The 
affection which subsisted between my mother and my 
brother Anthony was from the beginning to the end of 
their lives as tender and as warm as ever existed between 
a mother and son. Indeed, I remember that in the old 
days of our youth we used to consider Anthony the Ben- 
jamin. But from the time that he became a clerk in the 
post-office to her death, he and my mother were never 
together but as visitors during the limited period of a 
visit. From the time that I resigned my position at Bir- 
mingham to the time of her death, I was uninterruptedly 
an inmate of her house, or she of mine. And I think that 
I knew her as few sons know their mothers. 

No regicide, would-be or other, ever darkened her doors. 
No French proletaire, or other French political refugee 
was ever among her guests. She never was acquainted 
with any Italian marquis who had escaped in any degree 
of distress from poverty. With General Pepe she was 
intimate for years. But of him the world knows enough 
to perceive that my brother cannot have alluded to him. 
And I recollect no other marquis. It is very true that in 
the old Keppel Street and Harrow days several Italian 
exiles, and I think some Spaniards, used to be her occa- 
sional guests. This had come to pass by means of her 
intimacy with Lady Dyer, the wife and subsequently wid- 
ow of Sir Thomas Dyer, whose years of foreign service 
had interested him and her in many such persons. The 
friends of her friend were her friends. They were not 
such by virtue of their political position and ideas. Though 
it is no doubt true, that caring little about politics, and in a 
jesting way (how jesting many a memorial of fun between 



492 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

her and Lady Dyer, and Miss Gabell, the daughter of Dr. 
Gabell of Winchester, is still extant in my hands to prove), 
the general tone of the house was "Liberal." But noth- 
ing can be farther from the truth than the idea that my 
mother was led to become a Tory by the " graciousness " 
of any " marquises " or great folks of any kind. I am in- 
clined to think that there was one great personage, whose 
(not graciousness, but) intellectual influence f7^(^ impel her 
mind in a Conservative direction. And this was Metter- 
nich. She had more talk with him than her book on Vien- 
na would lead a reader to suppose ; and very far more of 
his mind and influence reached her through the medium 
of the princess. 

To how great a degree this is likely to have been the 
case may be in some measure perceived from a letter which 
the princess addressed to my mother shortly after she had 
left Vienna. She preserved it among a few others, which 
she specially valued, and I transcribe it from the original 
now before me. 

" Vous ne pourriez croire, ch5re Madame Trollope, conibien le portrait 
que vous avez charge le Baron Hiigel de me remettre m'a fait de plaisir ! 

" II y a longtemps que je cachais au fonds de mon coeur le desir de pos- 
seder votre portrait, qui, interressant pour le monde, est devenu precieux 
pour moi, puisque j'ai le plaisir de vous connaitre telle que vous etes, bonne, 
simple, bienveillante, et loin de tout ce qui effroie et eloigne des reputations 
literaires. Je remercie M. Hervieu de I'avoir fait aussi ressemblant. Et 
je vous assure, ch^re Madame Trollope, que rien ne pouvait me toucher 
aussi vivement et me faire autant de plaisir que ce souvenir venant de 
vous, qui me rappelera sans cesse les bons moments que j'ai eu la satis- 
faction de passer avec vous et qui resteront ^ jamais cheres 4 ma memoire. 
" Melanie, Pkincesse De Metternich." 

I think that the hours passed by the princess and my 
mother tete-d-tete, save for the presence of the artist occu- 
pied by his work during the painting of the Princess Me- 
lanie's portrait for my mother, were mainly the cause of 
the real intimacy of mind and affection which grew up 
between them — though, of course, the painting of the 
portrait shows that a considerable intimacy had previously 
arisen. And it had been arranged that the portrait of my 
mother, which was the occasion of the above letter, should 
be exchanged for that of the princess. But there had 



MY MOTHER. 



493 



been no time, amid the whirl of the Vienna gayeties, to 
get it executed. It was, therefore, sent from England by 
Baron Hugel when he called on my mother, on visiting 
this country shortly after her return from Austria. 

It occurs to me here to mention a circumstance which 
was, I think, the first thing to begin — not the acquaint- 
ance but — the intimacy in question; and which may be 
related as possessing an interest not confined to either of 
the ladies in question. 

The Archduchess Sophie had graciously intimated her 
desire that my mother should be presented to her, and an 
evening had been named for the purpose. But a few days 
before — just three, if I remember rightly — my mother 
caught a cold, which resulted in erysipelas, causing her 
head to become swollen to nearly double its usual size. 
Great was the dismay of the ladies who had arranged the 
meeting with the archduchess, chief among whom had been 
the Princess Melanie. She came to my mother, and in- 
sisted upon sending to her an old homoeopathic physician, 
who was her own medical attendant, and had been Hahne- 
mann's favorite pupil. He came, saw his patient, and was 
told that what he had to do was to make her presentable 
by the following Friday ! He shook his head, said the 
time was too short — but he would do his best. And the 
desired object wsisfulli/ attained. 

I have no doubt that my mother returned from her Vi- 
enna visit a more strongly convinced Conservative in poli- 
tics than she had hitherto been. And it does not seem to 
me that the modification of her opinions in that direction, 
which was doubtless largely operated by conversation with 
the great Conservative statesman and his alter ego, the 
princess, needs to be in any degree attributed to the 
"graciousness" of people in high position, either male or 
female. Is it not very intelligible and very likely that 
such opinions, so set forth, as she from day to day heard 
them, should have honestly and legitimately influenced 
her own ? 

But I think that I should be speaking, if perhaps pre- 
sumptuously, yet truly, if I were to add that there was 
also one very far from great personage, whose influence 



494 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

in the same direction was greater than even that of Prince 
Metternich or of any other great folks whatever; and that 
was the son in daily and almost hourly communion and 
conversation with whom she lived. I also had begun 
life as a "Liberal," and was such in the days when Mr. 
Gladstone was a high Tory. But my mind had long been 
travelling in an inverse direction to his. And far too 
large a number of my contemporaries, distinguished and 
undistinguished, have been moving in the same direction 
for it to be at all necessary to say that most assuredly my 
slowly maturing convictions were neither generated nor 
fostered by any "graciousness " or other influence of dukes 
or duchesses or great people of any sort. 

That my mother's political ideas were in no degree " an 
affair of the heart," I will not say, and by no means regret 
not being able to say. But I cannot but assert that it is 
a great mistake to say that they were uninfluenced by 
" reasoning from causes," or that the movement of her 
mind in this respect was in any degree whatever due to 
the caresses which my brother imagines to have caused it. 

She was not a great or careful preserver of papers and 
letters, or I might have been able to print here very many 
communications from persons in whom the world feels an 
interest. Among her early and very dear friends was Mary 
Mitford. 

I have a very vivid remembrance of the appearance of 
Mary Russell Mitford as I used to see her on the occasions 
of my visits to Reading, where my grandfather's second 
wife and then widow was residing. She was not corpu- 
lent, but her figure gave one the idea of almost cubical 
solidity. She had a round and red full-moon sort of face, 
from the ample forehead above which the hair was all 
dragged back and stowed away under a small and close- 
fitting cap, which, surrounding her face, increased the ef- 
fect of full-blown rotundity. But the gray eye and even 
the little snub nose were full of drollery and humoi*, and 
the lines about the generally somewhat closely-shut mouth 
indicated unmistakable intellectual power. There is a sin- 
gular resemblance between her handwriting and that of 
my mother. Very numerous letters must have passed be- 



LETTERS OF MARY MITFORD. 495 

tween them. But of all these I have been able to find but 
four. 

On the 3d of April, 1832, she writes from the "Three 
Mile Cross," so familiar to many readers, as follows : 

" My dear Mrs. Trollope, — I thank you most sincerely for your very 
delightful book, as well as for its great kindness towards me ; and I wish 
you joy, from the bottom of my heart, of the splendid success which has 
not merely attended but awaited its career — a happy and, I trust, certain 
augury of your literary good-fortune in every line which you may pursue, 
I assure you that my political prejudices are by no means shocked at 
your dishke of Republicanism. I was always a very aristocratic Whig, 
and since these reforming days am well-nigh become a stanch Tory, for 
pretty nearly the same reason that converted you — a dislike to mobs in 
action. . . . Refinement follows wealth, but not often closely, as witness 
the parvenu people in dear England. ... I heard of your plunge into 
the Backwoods first from Mr. Owen himself, with whom I foregathered 
three years ago in London, and of whom you have given so very true and 
graphic a picture. What extraordinary mildness and plausibility that 
man possesses ! I never before saw an instance of actual wildness — mad- 
ness of theory accompanied by such suavity and soberness of manner. 
Did you see my friend. Miss Sedgwick ? Her letters show a large and 
amiable mind, and a little niece of nine years old, who generally writes in 
them, has a style very unusual in so young a girl, and yet most useful and 
natural too. . . . Can you tell me if Mr. Flint be the author of ' George 
Mason, or the Young Backwoodsman ' ? I think that he is ; and whether 
the name of a young satirical writer be Sams or Sands ? Your answering 
these questions will stead me much, and I am sure that you will answer 
them if you can. 

" Now to your kind questions I am getting ready a fifth and last vol- 
ume of 'Our Village' as fast as I can, though with pain and difficulty, 
having hurt my left hand so much by a fall from an open carriage that 
it affects the right, and makes writing very uncomfortable to me. And I 
am in a most perplexed state about my opera, not knowing whether it will 
be produced this season or not, in consequence of Captain Polhill and his 
singers having parted. This would not have happened had my coadjutor 
the composer kept to his time. And I have still hopes that when the opera 
be [shall, omitted probably] taken in (the music is even now not finished), 
a sense of interest will brmg the parties together again. I hope that it 
may, for it will not only be a tremendous hit for all of us, but it will take 
me to London and give me the pleasure of a peep at you, a happiness to 
which I look forward very anxiously. I know Mr. Tom, and like him of 
all things, as everybody who knows him must, and I hear that his sisters 
are charming. God bless you, my dear friend. My father joins me in 
every good wish, and 

" I am ever most affectionately yours, 

" M. R. MiTFORP." 



496 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

A few weeks later she writes a very long letter almost 
entirely filled with a discussion of the desirability or non- 
desirability of writing in this, that, and the other " annual " 
or magazine. Most of those she alludes to are dead, and 
there is no interest in preserving her mainly unfavorable 
remarks concerning them and their editors and publishers. 
One sentence, however, is so singularly and amusingly 
suggestive of change in men and women and things that 
I must give it. After reviewing a great number of the 
leading monthlies, she says, " as for Fraser^s and Black- 
icood''Sy they are hardly such as a lady likes to write for !" 

After advising my mother to stick to writing novels, 
she says : 

" I have not a doubt that that is by far the most profitable branch of 
the literar}' profession. If ever I be bold enough to try that arduous path, 
I shall endeavor to come as near as I can to Miss Austen, my idol. You 
are very good about my opera. I am sorry to tell you, and you will be 
sorry to hear, that the composer has disappointed me, that the music is 
not even yet ready, and that the piece is therefore necessarily delayed till 
next season. 1 am very sorry for this on account of the money, and be- 
cause I have many friends in and near town, yourself among the rest, 
whom I was desirous to see. But I suppose it will be for the good of the 
opera to wait till the beginning of a season. It is to be produced with 
extraordinary splendor, and will, I think, be a tremendous hit. I hope 
also to have a tragedy out at nearly the same time in the autumn, and 
theyi I trust we shall meet, and I shall see your dear girls. 

" How glad I am to find that you partake of my great aversion to the 
sort of puffery belonging to literature. I hate it! and always did, and 
love you all the better for partaking of my feeling on the subject. I be- 
lieve that with me it is pride that revolts at the trash. And then it is so 
false ; the people are so clearly flattering to be flattered. Oh, I hate it ! ! ! 

" Make my kindest regards [sic] and accept my fathei^'s. 

" Ever most faithfully and affectionately yours, 

" M. R. MiTFORD. 

" P.S. — I suppose my book will be out in about a month. I shall desire 
Whittaker to send you a copy. It is the fifth and last volume." 

The following interesting letter, franked by her friend 
Talfourd, and shown only by the postmark to have been 
posted on the 20th of June, 1836, is apparently only part 
of a letter, for it is written upon one page, and the two 
"turnovers " only; and begins abruptly : 

" My being in London this year seems very uncertain, although if Mr. 



LETTERS OF MARY MITFORD. 497 

Sergeant Talfourd's " Ion " be played, as I believe it will, for Mr. Ma- 
cready's benefit, I shall hardly be able to resist the temptation of going 
up for a very few days to be present upon that occasion. But I scarcely 
ever stir. I am not strong, and am subject to a painful complaint which 
renders the service of a maid indispensable not only to my comfort but to 
my health; and that, besides the expense, has an appearance of fuss and 
finery to which I have a great objection, and to which, indeed, I have 
from station no claim. My father, too, hates to be left even for a day. 
And splendid old man as he is in his healthful and vigorous age, I cannot 
but recollect that he is seventy-five, and that he is my only tie upon earth 
— the only relation (except, indeed, a few very distant cousins, Russells, 
Greys, Ogles, and Deans, whom I am too proud and too poor to hook on 
upon), my only relation in the wide world. This is a desolate view of 
things ; but it explains a degree of clinging to that one most precious par- 
ent which people can hardly comprehend. You can scarcely imagine how 
fine an old man he is ; how clear of head and warm of heart. He almost 
wept over your letter to-day, and reads your book with singular delight and 
satisfaction, in spite of the difference in politics. He feels strongly, and 
so, I assure you, do I, your kind mention of me and my poor writings — a 
sort of testimony always gratifying, but doubly so when the distinguished 
writer is a dear friend. Even in this desolation, your success — that of 
your last work [" Paris and the Parisians "] especially must be satisfac- 
tory to you. I have no doubt that two volumes on Italy will prove equally 
delightful to your readers, while the journey will be the best possible rem- 
edy for all that you have suffered in spirits and health. 

" I am attempting a novel, for which Messieurs Saunders & Ottley have 
agreed to give £700. It is to be ready some time in September — I mean 
the MS. — and I am most anxious upon every account to make it as good 
as possible, one very great reason being the fair, candid, and liberal eon- 
duct of the intended publishers. I shall do my very best. Shall I, do you 
think, succeed ? I take for granted that our loss is your gain, and that 
you see Mr. Milman and his charming wife, who will, I am sure, sympa- 
thize most sincerely in your present * affliction, 

" Adieu, my dear friend. I am tying myself up from letter- writing until 
I have finished my novel, while I cannot but hope for one line from you 
to say that you are recovering. Letters to me may always be enclosed to 
Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, M.P., 2 Elm Court, Temple. Even if he be on cir- 
cuit, they will reach me after a short delay. God bless you all. My father 
joins heartily in this prayer, with 

" Your faithful and affectionate 

"M. R. MiTFORD." 

The next, and last which I have found, is entirely un- 
dated, but postmarked 20th April, ISS^ : 

* Mr. Milman had resigned recently the incumbency of a parish in Read- 
ing. My mother's affliction alluded to was the death of her youngest 
daughter, Emily. 



498 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

" My dear Friend, — I don't know when a trifle has pleased me so much 
fas the coincidence which set us a-writing to each other just at the same 
time. I have all the north-country superstition flowing through my veins, 
and do really believe in the exploded doctrine of sympathies. That is to 
say, I believe in all genial superstitions, and don't like this steam-packet 
railway world of ours,'wliich puts aside with so much scorn that which for 
certain Shakespeare and Ben Jonson held for true. I am charmed at your 
own account of yourself and your doings. Mr. Edward Kenyon — (whose 
brother, John Kenyon, of Harley Place, the most delightful man in Lon- 
don — of course, you know him — is my especial friend) — Mr. Edward Ken- 
yon, who lives chiefly at Vienna, although, I believe, in great retirement, 
spending £200 upon himself, and giving away £2000 — Mr. Edward Ken- 
yon spoke of you to me as having such opportunities of knowing both the 
city and the country as rarely befell even a resident, and what you say of 
the peasantry gives me a strong desire to see your book. 

"A happy subject is in my mind, a great thing, especially for you whose 
descriptions are so graphic. The thing that would interest me in Austria, 
and for the maintenance of which one almost pardons (not quite) their 
retaining that other old-fashioned thing, the state prisons, is their having 
kept up in their splendor those grand old monasteries, which are swept 
away now in Spain and Portugal. I have a passion for Gothic architecture, 
and a leaning towards the magnificence of the old religion, the foster-mother 
of all that is finest and highest in art ; and if I have such a thing as a liter- 
ary project, it is to write a romance of which Reading Abbey in its primal 
magnificence should form a part, not the least about forms of faith, under- 
stand, but as an element of the picturesque, and as embodying a very grand 
and influential part of bygone days. At present I have just finished (since 
writing ' Country Stories,' wliich people seem so good as to like) writing 
all the prose (except one story about the fashionable subject of Egyptian 
magicians, furnished to me by your admirer, Henry Chorley ; I wish you 
had seen him taking off his hat to the walls as I showed him your father's 
old residence at Heckfield), all the prose of the most splendid of the an- 
nuals, Finden's ' Tableaux,' of which my longest and best story — a Young 
Pretender story — I have been obliged to omit in consequence of not cal- 
culating on the length of my poetical contributors. But my poetry, espe- 
cially that by that wondei-ful young creature Miss Barrett, Mr, Kenyon, and 
Mr. Procter, is certainly such as has seldom before been seen in an annual, 
and joined with Finden's magnificent engravings ought to make an attrac- 
tive work. 

" I am now going to my novel, if it please God to grant me health. For 
the last two months I have only once crossed the outer threshold, and, 
indeed, I have never been a day well since the united effects of the tragedy 
and the influenza . . . [word destroyed by the seal]. What will become 
of that poor play is in the womb of time. But its being by universal ad- 
mission a far more striking drama than Rienzi,' and by very far the best 
thing I ever wrote, it follows almost, of course, that it will share the fate 
of its predecessor, and be tossed about the theatres for three or four years 
to come. Of course, I should be only too happy that it should be brought 



LETTERS OF MARY MITFORD. 499 

out at Covent Garden under the united auspices of Mr. Macready and Mr. 
Bartley.* But I am in constitution and in feeling a much older person 
than you, my dear friend, as well as in look, however the acknowledgment 
of age (I am 48) may stand between us ; and belonging to a most sanguine 
and confiding person, I am, of course, as prone to anticipate all probable 
evil as he is to forestall impossible good, lie, my dear father, is, I thank 
Heaven, splendidly well. He speaks of you always with much delight, is 
charmed with your writings, and I do hope that you will come to Reading 
and give him as well as me the great pleasure of seeing you at our poor 
cottage by the roadside. You would like my flower-garden. It is really a 
flower-garden becoming a duchess. People are so good in ministering to 
this, my only amusement. And the effect is heightened by passing through 
a laborer's cottage to get at it, for such our poor hut literally is. 

"You have heard, I suppose, that Mr. Wordsworth's eldest son, who 
married a daughter of Mr. Curwen, has lost nearly, if not quite, all of his 
wife's portion by the sea flowing in upon the mine, and has now nothing 
left but a living of £200 given him by his father-in-law. So are we all 
touched in turn. 

"I have written to the Sedgwicks for the scarlet lilies mentioned by 
Miss Martineau in her American book. Did you happen to see them in 
their glory ? of course they would flourish here ; and having sent them 
primroses, cowslips, ivy, and many other English wild flowers, which took 
Theodore Sedgwick's fancy, I have a right to the return. How glad I am 
to hear the good you tell me of my friend Tom. His fortune seems now 
assured. My father's kindest regards. 

" Ever, my dear friend, 

"Very faithfully yours, M. R. Mitford. 

" P.S. — Mr. Carey, the translator of Dante, has just been here. He says 
that he visited Cowper's residence at Olney lately, and that his garden 
room, which suggested mine, is incredibly small, and not near so pretty. 
Come and see. You know, of course, that the ' Modern Antiques ' in ' Our 
Village ' were Theodosia and Frances Hill, sisters of Joseph Hill, cousins 
and friends of poor Cowper." 

What the " good " was by which my " fortune was as- 
sured " I am unable to guess. But I am sure of the sin- 
cerity of the writer's rejoicing thereat. 

Mary Mitford was a genuinely warm-hearted woman, 
and much of her talk would probably be stigmatized by the 
young gentlemen of the present generation, who consider 
the moral temperature of a fish to be " good form," as 
"gush." How old Landor, who "gushed" from cradle to 
grave, would have massacred and rended in his wrath such 
talkers ! Mary Mitf ord's " gush " was sincere at all events. 

* This gentleman was an old and highly valued friend of my mother. 



500 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

But there is a " liall-mark " for those who can decipher it, 
"without which none is genuine." 

A considerable intimacy grew up between my mother 
and the author of " Highvv^ays and Byeways " during the 
latter part of his residence in England, and subsequently, 
when returning from Boston on leave, he visited Florence 
and Rome. Many letters passed between them after his 
establishment as British consul at Boston, some charac- 
teristic selections from which will, I doubt not, be accept- 
able to many readers. 

The following was written on the envelope enclosing a 
very long letter from Mrs. Grattan, and was written, I 
think, in 1840 : 

*' I cannot avoid squeezing in a few words more just as the ship is on 
the point of sailing or steaming away for England. . . . 'The President' 
has been a fatal title this spring. Poor Harrison, a good and honest man, 
died in a month after he was elected, and this fine ship, about which we 
have been at this side of the Atlantic so painfully excited ever since March, 
is, I fear, gone down with its gallant captain (Roberts, with whom we 
crossed the Atlantic in the British Queen) and poor Power, whom the pub- 
lic cannot afford to lose. 

" Since I wrote my letter three days ago — pardon the boldly original topic 
— the weather has mended considerably. Tell Tom that every tree is also 
striving to turn over a new leaf, and it is well for you that I have not an- 
other to turn too. God bless you. T. C. G." 

I beg to observe that the exhortation addressed to me 
had no moral significance, but was the writer's character- 
istic mode of exciting me to new scribblements. 

The following, also written on the envelope enclosing a 
letter from Mrs. Grattan, is dated the 30th of July, 1840: 

" I cannot let the envelope go quite a blank, though I cannot quite make 
it a prize. ... In literature I have done nothing but write a preface and 
notes for two new editions of the old " Highways and Byeways," and a 
short sketchy article in this month's numljer of the North American Re- 
view on the present state of Ireland. I am going to follow it up in the 
next number in reference to the state of the Irish in America, and I hope 
I shall thus do some good to a subject I have much at heart. I have had 
various applications to deliver lectures at lyceums, etc., and to preside at 
public meetings for various objects. All this I have declined. I have 
been very much before the public at dinners for various purposes, and have 
refused many invitations to several neighboring cities. I must now draw 
back a little. I think I have hitherto done good to the cause of peace and 
friendship between the countries. But I know these continued public ap- 



LETTERS OF T. C. GRATTAN. 501 

pearances will expose me to envy, hatred, and malice. I hope to do some- 
thing historical by and by, and perhaps an occasional article in the North 
American Revieiv. But anything like light writing I never can again 
turn to." 

From a very long letter written on the ISth of May, 
1841, I will give a few extracts : 

" My dear and valued Friend, — Your letter from Penryth \sic\ with- 
out date, but bearing the ominous postmark, 'April 1st,' has completely 
made a fool of me, in that sense which implies that nothing else can excuse 
a gray head and a seared heart for thinking and feeling that there are such 
things in the world as affection and sincerity. Being fond of flying in the 
face of reason, and despising experience, whenever they lay down general 
rules, I am resolved to believe in exceptions, to delight in instances, and to 
be quite satisfied that I have 'troops of friends' — you being one of the 
troopers — no matter how few others there may be, or where they are to be 
found. 

" You really must imagine how glad we were to see your handwriting 
again, and I may say, also, how surprised ; for it passeth our understand- 
ing to discover how you make time for any correspondence at all. We 
have followed all your literary doings step by step since we left Europe, 
and we never cease wondering at your fertility and rejoicing at your sue- 
cess. But I am grieved to think that all tliis is at the cost of your com- 
fort. Or is it that you wrote in a querulous mood when you said those 
sharp things about your gray-goose quill? Surely composition must be 
pleasant to you. No one who writes so fast and so well can find it actu- 
ally irksome. I am aware that people sometimes think they find it so. 
But we may deceive ourselves on the dark as well as on the bright side of 
our road, and more easily because it is the dark. That is to say, we may 
not only cheat ourselves with false hopes of good, but with false notions 
of evil, which proves, if it proves anything just now, that you are consid- 
erably mistaken when you fancy writing to be a bore, and that I know- 
infinitely better than you do what you like or dislike." 

It is rather singular to find a literary worhman talking 
in this style. Grattan was not a fertile writer, and, I 
must suppose, was never a very industrious one. But he 
surely must have known that talk about the pleasures of 
"composition" was wholly beside the mark. That may 
be, often is, pleasant enough, and if the thoughts could 
be telephoned from the brain to the types it would all be 
mighty agreeable, and the world would be very consider- 
ably more overwhelmed with authorship than it is. It is 
the " gray-goose quill " w^ork, the necessity for incarnating 
the creatures of the brain in black and white, that is the 



502 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

world's protection from this avalanche. And I, ifor one, 
do not understand how anybody who, eschewing the sun- 
shine and the fields and the song of birds, or the enjoy- 
ment of other people's brain-work, has glued himself to 
his desk for long hours, can say or imagine that his task 
is, or has been, aught else than hard and distasteful work, 
demanding unrelaxing self-denial and industry. And, 
however fine the frenzy in which the poet's eye may roll 
while he builds the lofty line, the work of putting some 
thousands of them on the paper, when built, must be as irk- 
some to him as the penny-a-liner's task is to hhn — more so, 
in that the mind of the latter does not need to be forcibly 
and painfully restrained from rushing on to the new past- 
ures which invite it, and curbed to the packhorse j^ace of 
the quill-driving process. 

"You must not," he continues, "allow yourself to be, or even fancy 
that you are, tired, or tormented, or worn out. Work the mine to the 
last. Pump up every drop out of the well. Put money i' thy purse ; and 
add story after story to that structure of fame, Avhich will enable you to 
do as much to that house by the lake-side where I will hope to see you 
yet." 

He then goes on to speak at considerable length of the 
society of Boston, praising it much, yet saying that it is 
made more charming to a visitor than to a permanent res- 
ident. " In this it differs," he says, " from almost all the 
countries I have lived in in Europe except Holland." 

Speaking of a visit to Washington during the inaugura- 
tion of General Harrison, which seems to have delighted 
him much, he says he travelled back with a family, 

*' At least with the master and mistress of it, of whom I must tell you 
something. Mr. Paige is a merchant, and brother-in-law of Mr. Webster; 
Mrs. Paige a niece of Judge Story. From this double connection with two 
of the first men iti the country their family associations are particularly 
agreeable. Mrs, Paige is one of three sisters, all very handsome, spirited, 
and full of talent. One is married to Mr. Webster's eldest son. Another, 
Mrs. Joy, has for her husband an idle gentleman, a rare thing in this place. 
Mrs. Paige was in Europe two years ago with Mr. and Mrs. Webster, sen- 
ior (the latter, by-the-bye, is a most charming person), and had the advan- 
tage of seeing society ia England and France in its best aspect, and is one 
who can compare as well as see. . . . Among the men [of the Boston soci- 
ety] are Dr. Channing, a prophet in our country, a pamphleteer in his own ; 



LETTERS OF T. C. GRATTAN. 503 

Bancroft, the historian of America, a man of superior talents and great 
agreeability, but a black sheep iu society, on account of his Van Buren 
politics, against whom the white sheep of the Whig party will not rub 
themselves; Prescott, tlie author of 'Ferdinand and Isabella,' a hand- 
some, half-blind shunner of the vanities of the world, with some others 
who read and write a good deal, and no one the wiser for it. Edward 
Everett is in Italy, where you will surely meet him [we saw a good deal of 
him]. He is rather formal than cold, if all I hear whispered of him be 
true; of elegant taste in literature, though not of easy manners, and, alto- 
gether, an admirable specimen of an American orator and scholar. At 
Cambridge, three miles off, we have Judge Story, of the Supreme Court, 
eloquent, deeply learned, garrulous, lively, amiable, excellent in all and 
every way that a mortal can be. He is, decidedly, the gem of this western 
world. Mr. Webster is now settled at Washington, though here at this 
moment on a visit to Mrs. Paige. Among our neighboring notabiUties is 
John Quincy Adams, an ex-President of the United States, ex-minister at 
half the courts in Europe, and now, at seventy-five, a simple member of 
Congress, hard as a piece of granite and cold as a lump of ice." 

Speaking of his having very frequently appeared at 
public meetings during the first year of his consulship, 
and of his having since that refrained from such appear- 
ances, he continues : 

"I was doubtful as to the way my being so much en evidence might be 
relished at liome. Of late public matters have been on so ticklish a foot- 
ing that all the less a British functionary was seen the better. 

"In literature I have done nothing, barring a couple of articles on Ire- 
land and the Irish in America, a subject I have much at heart. But, much 
as I feel for them and with them, I refused dining with my countrymen on 
St. Patrick's Day because they had the gaxicherie (of which I had previous 
notice) to turn the festive meeting into a political one by giving ' O'Connell 
and success to repeal ' as one of their ' regular ' toasts, and by leaving out 
the Queen's health, which they gave when I dined with them last year." 

Then, after detailed notices of the movements of his 
sons, he goes on : 

"We have many plans in perspective — Niagara, Canada, Halifax, the 
mountains, the springs, the sea — the result of which you shall know as 
soon as we receive a true and faithful account of your adventures in just 
as many pages as you can afford ; but Tom must, in the meantime, send 
me a long letter. . . . Tell Tom I have half resolved to give up punning and 
take to repartee. A young fellow said to me the other day, 'Ah ! Mr. Con- 
sul (as I am always called), I wish I could discover a new pleasure.' 'Try 
virtue !' was my reply. A pompous ex-governor said, swaggeringly, to me, 
at the last dinner-party at which I assisted, 'Well, Mr. Consul, I suppose 



504 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

you Europeans think us semi-civilized here in America?' 'Almost!' said 
I. Now ask Tom if that was not pretty considerable smart. But assure 
him, at the same time, it is nothing at all to what I could do in the way of 
impertinence ! Need I say how truly and affectionately we all love you ? 

" T. C. Grattan." 

I wrote back that I would enter the lists with hi-ni in the 
matter of impertinence, and, as a sample, told him that I 
thought he had better return to the punning. 

I could, I doubt not, find among my mother's papers 
some further letters that might be worth printing or quot- 
ing. But my waning space warns me that I must not in- 
dulge myself with doing so. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

THEODOSIA TROLLOP E. 

I SAID at the beginning of the last chapter that, during 
the period, some of the recollections of which I had been 
chronicling, the two greatest sorrows I had ever known 
had befallen me. A third came subsequently. But that 
belonged to a period of my life which does not fall within 
the limits I have assigned to these reminiscences. Of the 
first, the death of my mother, I have spoken. The other, 
the death of my wife, followed it at no great distance, and 
was, of course, a far more terrible one. She had been ail- 
ing — so long, indeed, that I had become habituated to it, 
and thought that she would continue to live as she had 
been living. We had been travelling in Switzerland in 
the autumn of 1864 ; and I remember very vividly her 
saying, on board the steamer by which we were leaving 
Colico, at the head of the Lake of Como, on our return to 
Italy, as she turned on the deck to take a last look at the 
mountains, " Good-])ye, you big beauties!" I little thought 
it was her last adieu to them ; but I thought afterwards 
that she probably may have had some misgivings that it 
was so. 

But it was not till the following spring that I began to 
realize that I must lose her. She died on the 13th of April, 
1865. 

I have spoken of her as she was when she became my 
wdfe, but without much hope of representing her to those 
who never had the happiness of knowing her as she really 
was, not only in person, which matters little, but in mind 
and intellectual powers. And to tell what she was in 
heart, in disposition — in a word, in soul — would be a far 
more difficult task. 

In her the aesthetic faculties were probably the most 
markedly exceptional portion of her intellectual constitu- 
22 



506 



WHAT I REMEMBER. 



tion. The often-cited dictum, les races se feminisent, was 
not exemplified in her case. From her mother, an accom- 
plished musician, she inherited her very pronounced mu- 
sical* faculty and tendencies, and, I think, little else. 
From her father, a man of very varied capacities and cult- 
ure, she drew much more. How far, if in any degree, this 
fact may be supposed to have been connected in the rela- 
tion of cause and eifect, with the other fact, that her m.oth- 
er was more than fifty years of age at the time of her birth, 
I leave to the speculations of physiological inquirers. In 
bodily constitution her inheritance from her father's moth- 
er was most marked. To that source must be traced, I 
conceive, the delicacy of constitution, speaking medically, 
which deprived me of her at a comparatively early age ; 
for both father and mother were of thoroughly healthy 
and strong constitutions. But if it may be suspected that 
the Brahmin Sultana, her grandmother, bequeathed her her 
frail diathesis, there was no doubt or difiiculty in tracing 
to that source the exterior delicacy of formation which 
characterized her. I remember her telling me that the 
last words a dying sister of her mother's ever spoke, when 
Theodosia, standing by the bedside, placed her hand on 
the dying woman's forehead, were, " Ah, that is Theo's 
little Indian hand." And, truly, the slender delicacy of 
hand and foot which characterized her were unmistakably 
due to her Indian descent. In person she in no wise re- 
sembled either father or mother, unless it were, possibly, 
her father, in the conformation and shape of the teeth. 

I have already, in a previous chapter of these reminis- 
cences, given a letter from Mrs. Browning in which she 
speaks of Theodosia's "multiform faculty." And the 
phrase, which so occurring, might in the case of almost 
any other writer be taken as a mere epistolary civility, is 
in the case of one whose absolute accuracy of veracity 
never swerved a hair's - breadth, equivalent to a formal 
certificate of the fact to the best of her knowledge. And 
she knew my wife well both before and after the mar- 
riage of either of them. Her faculty was truly multiform. 

* But this she might, also, have got from her father, who was passion- 
ately fond of music, and was a very respectable performer on the violin. 



THEODOSIA TROLLOPE. 607 

She was not a great musician ; but her singing had for 
great musicians a charm which the performances of many 
of their equals in the art failed to afford them. She had 
never much voice, but I have rarely seen the hearer to 
whose eyes she- could not bring the tears. She had a spell 
for awakening emotional sympathy which I have never 
seen surpassed, rarely, indeed, equalled. 

For language she had an especial talent, was dainty in 
the use of her own, and astonishingly apt in acquiring — 
not merely the use for speaking as well as reading pur- 
poses, but — the delicacies of otlier tongues. Of Italian, 
with which she was naturally most conversant, she was 
recognized by acknowledged experts to be a thoroughly 
competent critic. 

She published, now many years ago, in the Athe7iCGum, 
some translations from the satirist Giusti, which any in- 
telligent reader would, I think, recognize to be cleverly 
done. But none save the very few in this country who 
know and can understand the Tuscan poet's works in the 
original can at all conceive the difficulty of translating 
him into tolerable English verse. And I have no hesita- 
tion in asserting that any competent judge, who is such 
by virtue of understanding the original, would pronounce 
her translations of Giusti to be a masterpiece, which very 
few, indeed, of contemporary men or women could have 
produced. I have more than once surprised her in tears 
occasioned by her obstinate struggles with some passage of 
the intensely idiomatic satirist, which she found it almost 
— but eventually not quite — impossible to render to her 
satisfaction. 

She published a translation of Niccolini's "Arnaldo da 
Brescia," which won the cordial admiration and friendship 
of that great poet. And neither Niccolini's admiration 
nor his friendship were easily won. He was, when we 
knew him at Florence in his old age, a somewhat crabbed 
old man, not at all disposed to make new acquaintances, 
and, I think, somewhat soured and disappointed, not cer- 
tainly with the meed of admiration he had won from his 
countrymen as a poet, but with the amount of effect which 
his writings had availed to produce in the political senti- 



608 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

ments and then apparent destinies of the Italians. But 
he was conquered by the young Englishwoman's trans- 
lation of his favorite, and, I think, his finest work. It is a 
thoroughly trustworthy and excellent translation ; but the 
execution of it was child's play in comparison with the 
translations from Giusti. 

She translated a number of the curiously characteristic 
stornelli of Tuscany, and especially of the Pistoja moun- 
tains. And here again it is impossible to make any one 
who has never been familiar with these stornelli under- 
stand the especial difficulty of translating them. Of 
course the task was ^ slighter and less significant one 
than that of translating Giusti, nor was the same degree 
of critical accuracy and nicety in rendering shades of 
meaning called for. But there were not — are not — many 
persons who could cope with the especial difficulties of the 
attempt as successfully as she did. She produced also a 
number of pen-and-ink drawings illustrating these stor- 
nelli, which I still possess, and in which the spirited, 
graphic, and accurately truthful characterization of the 
figures could only have been achieved by an artist very 
intimately acquainted intus et in cute with the subjects of 
her pencil. 

She published a volume on the Tuscan revolution, which 
was very favorably received. The Examiner, among oth- 
er critics — all of them, to the best of my remembrance, 
more or less favorable — said of these " Letters " (for that 
was the form in which the work was published, all of 
them, I think, having been previously printed in the Athe- 
9iceicm), " Better political information than this book gives 
may be had in plenty ; but it has a special value which 
we might almost represent by comparing it to the report 
of a very watchful nurse, who, without the physician's 
scientific knowledge, uses her own womanly instinct in 
observing every change of countenance and every move- 
ment indicating the return of health and strength to the 
patient. . . . She has written a very vivid and truthful 
account." The critic has very accurately, and, it may be 
said, graphically, assigned its true value and character to 
the book. 



THEODOSIA TROLLOPE. 509 

I have found it necessary in a former chapter, where I 
have given a number of interesting and characteristic let- 
ters from Landor to my wife's father, to insert a depreca- 
tory caveat against the exuberant enthusiasm of admira- 
tion which led him to talk of the probability of her eclips- 
ing the names and fame of other poets, including in this 
estimate Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The preposterous- 
ness of this no human being would have felt more strong- 
ly than Theodosia Garrow, except Theodosia Trollope, 
when such an estimate had become yet more preposterous. 
But Landor, whose unstinted admiration of Mrs. Brown- 
ing's poetry is vigorously enough expressed in his own 
strong language, as may be seen in Mr. Forster's pages, 
would not have dreamed of instituting any such compar- 
ison at a later day. But that his critical acumen and 
judgment were not altogether destroyed by the enthu- 
siasm of his friendship, is, I think, shown by the following 
little poem by Theodosia Trollope, written a few years af- 
ter the birth of her child. I don't think I need apologize 
for printing it. 

The original MS. of it before me gives no title ; nor do 
I remember that the authoress ever assigned one to the 
verses. 



*'In the noonday's golden pleasance, 
Little Bice, baby fair, 
With a fresh and flowery presence, 
Dances round her nurse's chair, 
In the old gray loggia dances, haloed by her shining hair. 



"Pretty pearl in sober setting, 

Where the arches garner shade! 
Cones of maize like golden netting. 
Fringe the sturdy colonnade, 
And the lizards pertly pausing glance across the balustrade. 



"Brown cicala dryly proses, 

Creaking the hot air to sleep. 
Bounteous orange-flowers and roses. 
Yield the wealth of love they keep, 
To the sun's imperious ardor in a dream of fragrance deep. 



510 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

IT. 

"And a cypress, mystic hearted, 
Cleaves the quiet dome of light 
With its black green masses parted 
But by gaps of blacker night. 
Which the giddy moth and beetle circle round in dubious flight. 



" Here the well-chain's pleasant clanging, 
Sings of coolness deep below ; 
There the vine leaves breathless hanging, 
Shine transfigured in the glow. 
And the pillars stare in silence at the shadows which they throw. 



" Portly nurse, black-browed, red-vested. 
Knits and dozes, drowsed with heat; 
Bice, like a wren gold-crested, 
Chirps and teases round her seat. 
Hides the needles, plucks the stocking, rolls the cotton o'er her feet. 



"Nurse must fetch a draught of water, 
In the glass with painted wings,* 
Nurse must show her little daughter 
All her tale of silver rings. 
Dear sweet nurse must sing a couplet — solemn nurse, who never sings. 

Till. 

"Blest Madonna! what a clamor! 
Now the little torment tries. 
Perched on tiptoe, all the glamour 
Of her coaxing hands and eyes ! 
May she hold the glass she drinks from — just one moment, Bice cries. 



"Nurse lifts high the Venice beaker. 

Bossed with masks, and flecked with gold, 
Scarce in time to 'scape the quicker 
Little fingers overbold. 
Craving, tendril-like, to grasp it, with the will of four years old. 

* Those unacquainted with the forms of the old decorated Venetian glass 
will hardly understand the phrase in the text. Those who know them will 
feel the accuracy of the picture. 



THEODOSIA TROLLOPE. 511 

X. 

" Pretty wood-bird, pecking, flitting, 
Round the clierries on the tree, 
Ware the scarecrow, grimly sitting, 
Crouched for silly things, like thee ! 
Nurse hath plenty such in ambush. ' Touch not, for it burns,'* quoth she. 

XI. 

"And thine eyes' blue mirror widens 
With an awestroke of belief; 
Meekly following that blind guidance, 
On thy finger's rosy sheaf, 
Blow'st thou softly, fancy wounded, soothing down a painless gi'ief. 

XII. 

" Nurse and nursling, learner, teacher, 
Thus foreshadow things to come, 
When the girl shall grow the creature 
Of false terrors vain and dumb. 
And intrust their baleful fetish with her being's scope and sum. 



"Then her heart shall shrink and wither. 
Custom-straitened like her waist, 
All her thought to cower together. 
Huddling, sheeplike, with the rest. 
With the flock of soulless bodies on a pattern schooled and laced. 

XIV. 

"Till the stream of years encrust her 
With a numbing mail of stone. 
Till her laugh lose half its lustre, 
And her truth forswear its tone, 
And she sees God's might and mercy darkly through a glass alone ! 

XV. 

" While our childhood fair and sacred, 
Sapless doctrines doth rehearse. 
And the milk of falsehoods acrid. 
Burns our babe-lips like a curse. 
Cling we must to godless prophets, as the suckling to the nurse. 



"As the seed time, so the reaping, 
Shame on us who overreach, 

* " Non toccare che brucia" Tuscan proverb. 



512 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

While our eyes yet smart with weeping, 
Hearts so all our own to teach, 
Better they and we lay sleeping where the darkness hath uo speech !" 

It is impossible for any but those who know — not Flor- 
ence, but — rural Tuscany well to appreciate the really 
wonderful accuracy and picturesque perfection of the 
above scene from a Tuscan afternoon. But I think many 
others will feel the lines to be good. In the concluding 
stanzas, in which the writer draws her moral, there are 
weak lines. But in the first eleven, which paint her pict- 
ure, there is not one. Every touch tells, and tells with 
admirable truth and vividness of presentation. In one 
copy of the lines which I have, the name is changed from 
Bice to "Flavia," and this, I take it, because of the entire 
non-applicability of the latter stanzas to the child, whose 
rearing was in her own hands. But the picture of child 
and nurse — how lifelike none can tell but I — was the pict- 
ure of her " baby Beatrice," and the description simply 
the reproduction of things seen. 

I think I may venture to print also the follow^ing lines. 
They are, in my opinion, far from being equal in merit to 
the little poem printed above, but they are j^retty, and I 
think sufficiently good to do no discredit to her memory. 
Like the preceding, they have no title. 



"I built me a temple, and said it should be 
A shrine, and a home where the past meets me, 
And the most evanescent and fleeting of things, 
Should be lured to my temple, and shorn of their wings, 
To adorn my palace of memories. 

II. 
"The pearl of tlie morning, the glow of the noon, 
The play of the clouds as they float past the moon, 
The most magical tint on the snowiest peak, 
They are gone while I gaze, fade before you can speak, 
Yet they stay in my palace of memories. 

III. 
*' I stood in the midst of the forest trees. 
And heard the sweet sigh of the wandering breeze, 



THEODOSIA TKOLLOPE. 513 

And this with the tinkle of heifer bells, 
As they trill on the ear from the dewy dells, 
Are the sounds in my palace of memories. 



"I looked in the face of a little child, 
With its fugitive dimples and eyes so wild. 
It springs off with a bound like a wild gazelle, 
It is off and away, but I've caught my * 

And here's mirth for my palace of memories. 

V. 

"In the morning we meet on a mountain height. 
And we walk and converse till the fall of night, 
We hold hands for a moment, then pass on our way. 
But that which I've got from the friend of a day, 
I'll keep in my palace of memories." 

The verses which Landor praised with enthusiasm so 
excessive were most, or I think all of them, published in 
the annual edited by his friend Lady Blessington, and 
were all written before our marriage. I have many long 
letters addressed to her by that lady, and several by her 
niece Miss Power, respecting them. They always in every 
instance ask for " more." 

Many of her verses she set to music, especially one little 
poemlet, which I remember to this day the tune of, which 
she called the '* Song of the Blackbird," and which was, if 
I remember rightly, made to consist wholly of the notes 
uttered by the bird. 

Another instance of her " multiform faculty " was her 
learning landscape sketching. I have spoken of her figure- 
drawing. And this, I take it, was the real bent of her 
talent in that line. But unable to compass the likeness of 
a haystack myself, I was desirous of possessing some rec- 
ord of the many journeys which I designed to take, and 
eventually did take with her. And wholly to please me 
she forthwith made the attempt, and though her land- 
scape was never equal to her figure drawing, I possess some 
couple of hundred of water-color sketches done by her 
from nature on the spot. 

* Word here illegible. 
22* 



514 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

I used to say that if I wanted a Sanscrit dictionary, I 
had only to put her head straight at it, and let her feel the 
spur, and it would have been done. 

We lived together seventeen happy years. During the 
first five I think I may say that she lived wholly and 
solely in, by, and for me. That she should live for some- 
body other than herself was an absolute indefeasible neces- 
sity of her nature. During the last twelve years I shared 
her heart with her daughter. Her intense worship for her 
"Baby Beatrice" was equalled only by — that of all the 
silliest and all the wisest women, who have true womanly 
hearts in their bosoms, for their children. The worship 
was, of course, all the more absorbing that the object of 
it was unique. I take it that, after the birth of her child, 
I came second in her heart. But I was not jealous of little 
Bice. 

I do not think that she would have quite subscribed to 
the opinion of Garibaldi on the subject of the priesthood, 
which I mentioned in a former chapter — that they ought 
all to be forthwith put to death. But all her feelings and 
opinions were bitterly antagonistic to them. She was so 
deeply convinced of the magnitude of the evil inflicted 
by them and their Church on the character of the Italians, 
for whom she ever felt a great aff*ection, that she was 
bitter on the subject. And it is the only subject on which 
I ever knew her to feel in any degree bitterly. Many of 
her verses written during her latter years are fiercely de- 
nunciatory or humorously satirical of the Italian priest- 
hood, and especially of the pontifical government. I 
wish that my space permitted me to give further speci- 
mens of them here. But I must content myself with giv- 
ing one line, which haunts my memory, and appears to me 
excessively happy in the accurate truthfulness of its sim- 
ile. She is writing of the journey which Pius the Ninth 
made, and describing his equipment, says that he started 
"with strings of cheap blessings, like glass beads for 
savages." 

With the exception of this strong sentiment my wife 
was one of the most tolerant people I ever knew. What 
she most avoided in those with whom she associated was, 



THEODOSIA TROLLOPE. 515 

not so much ignorance, or even vulgarity of manner, as 
pure native stupidity. But even of that, when the need 
arose, she was tolerant. I never knew her in the selection 
of an acquaintance, or even of a friend, to be influenced 
to the extent of even a hair's-breadth by station, rank, 
wealth, fashion, or any consideration whatever, save per- 
sonal liking and sympathy, which was, in her case, per- 
fectly compatible with the widest divergence of views and 
opinions on nearly any of the great subjects which most 
divide mankind, and even wdth divergence of rules of con- 
duct. Her own opinions were the honest results of orig- 
inal thinking, and her conduct the outcome of the dictates 
of her own heart — of her heart rather than of her reason- 
ing powers, or of any code of law — a condition of mind 
which might be dangerous to individuals with less native 
purity of heart than hers. 

As a wife, as a daughter, as a daughter-in-law, as a 
mother, she was absolutely irreproachable. In the first 
relationship she was all in all to me for seventeen years. 
She brought sweetness and light into my life and into my 
dwelling. She was the angel in the house, if ever human 
being was. 

Her father became an inmate of our house after the 
death of his wife at a great age at Torquay, whither they 
had returned after the death of my wdfe's half-sister, Har- 
riet Fisher. He was a jealously affectionate, but very ex- 
acting father ; and few daughters, I think, could have 
been more admirable in her affection for him, her atten- 
tion to him, her care of him. And I may very safely say 
that very few mothers of sons have the fortune of finding 
such a daughter-in-law. My mother had been very fond 
of her before our marriage, and became afterwards as de- 
votedly attached to her as she was to me, of whom she 
knew her to be an indivisible part, while she was to my 
mother simply perfect. Her own mother she had always 
been in the habit of calling by that name. She always 
spoke to and of my mother as " mammy." What she was 
to her own daughter I have already said. There was 
somewhat of the tendency towards " spoiling " which is 
mostly inseparable from the adoration which a young 



516 WHAT I KEMEMBER. 

mother, of the right sort, feels for her first-born child, but 
she never made any attempt to avert or counteract my 
endeavors to prevent such spoiling. When little Bice had 
to be punished by solitary confinement for half an hour, 
she only watched anxiously for the expiration of the sen- 
tence.* 

But that her worth, her talent, her social qualities, were 
recognized by a wider world than that of her own family, 
or her own circle of friends, is testified by the recording 
stone which the municipality placed on my house at the 
corner of the Piazza dell' Independenza, where it may still 
be seen. Indeed, the honor was not undeserved. For dur- 
ing the whole of her residence in Italy, which nearly syn- 
chronized with the struggle of Italy for her independence 
and unity, she had adopted the Italian cause heart and 
soul, and done what was in her to do, for its advancement. 
The honor was rendered the more signal, and the more 
acceptable, from the fact that the same had recently been 
rendered by the same body to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

* I do not remember that little Bice ever consoled herself under the dis- 
grace of such captivity as my present wife has confessed to me that she 
did when suffering under the same condemnation. Her method of com- 
bining the maintenance of personal dignity with revenge on the oppressor 
was to say to the first person who came to take her out of prison, " No, 
you can't come into my parlor !" 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

DEATH OF MR. GARROW. PROTESTANT CEMETERY. ANGEL 

IN THE HOUSE NO MORE. 

The house in the Piazza dell' Independenza which was 
known in the city as *' Villino Trollope," and of w^hich I 
have spoken at the close of the last chapter, was my prop- 
erty, and I had lived in it nearly the whole of my married 
life. During that time four deaths had occurred among 
its inmates. 

The first to happen w^as that of the old and highly val- 
ued servant of whom I had occasion to speak when upon 
the subject of Mr. Hume's spiritualistic experiences at my 
house. She had been for many years a much trusted and 
beloved servant in the family of Mr. Garrow at Torquay, 
and had accompanied them abroad. Her name was Eliza- 
beth Shinner. Her death was felt by all of us as that of 
a member of our family, and she lies in the Protestant 
cemetery at Florence by the side of her former master, 
and of the young mistress whom she had loved as a child 
of her own. 

The next to go was Mr. Garrow. His death was a very 
sudden and unexpected one. He was a robust and appar- 
ently perfectly healthy man. I was absent from home 
when he died. I had gone with a Cornishman, a Mr. Tre- 
whella, who was desirous of visiting Mr. Sloane's copper 
mine, in the neighborhood of Volterra, of which I have 
before spoken. We had accomplished our visit, and were 
returning over the Apennine about six o'clock in the morn- 
ing in a little haglierino, as the country cart-gigs are called, 
when we were hailed by a man in a similar carriage meet- 
ing us, whom I recognized as the foreman of a carpenter 
we employed. He had been sent to find me, and bring 
me home with all speed, in consequence of the sudden ill- 
ness of Mr. Garrow. As far as I could learn from him, 



518 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

there was little probability of finding my father-in-law 
alive. I made the best of my way to Florence. But he 
had been dead several hours when I arrived. He had 
waked with a paralytic attack on him, which deprived him 
of the power of moving on the left side, and, drawing his 
face awry, made speech almost impossible to him. He 
assured his servant — who was almost immediately with 
him — speaking with much diflaculty, that it was nothing 
of any importance, and that he should soon get over it. 
But these were the last words he ever spoke, and in two 
or three hours afterwards he breathed his last. 

Then, in a few years more, the crescendo wave of trouble . 
took my mother from me at the age of eighty-three. For 
the last two or three years she had entirely lost her mem- 
ory, and for the last few months the use of her mental fac- 
ulties. And she did not suffer much. The last words she 
uttered were " Poor Cecilia !" — her mind reverting in her 
latest moments to the child whose loss had been the most 
recent. She had for years entertained a great horror and 
dread of the possibility of being buried alive, in conse- 
quence of the very short time allowed by the law for a 
body to remain unburied after death; and she had exacted 
from me a promise that I would in any case cause a vein 
to be opened in her arm after death. In her case there 
could be no possible room for the shadow of doubt as to 
the certainty of death ; but I was bound by my promise, 
and found some difficulty in the performance of it. The 
medical man in attendance, declaring the absolute absurd- 
ity of any doubt on the subject, refused to perform an 
operation which, he said, was wholly uncalled for, and ar- 
gued that my promise could only be understood to apply 
to a case of possible doubt. I had none; but was none the 
less determined to be faithful to my promise. But it was 
not till I declared that I would myself sever a vein, in 
however butcher-like a manner, that I induced him to ac- 
company me to the death-chamber and perform under my 
eyes the necessary operation. 

My mother, the inseparable companion of so many wan- 
derings in so many lands, the indefatigable laborer of so 
many years, found her rest near to the two who had gone 



ANGEL IN THE HOUSE NO MORE. 519 

from my house before, in the beautiful little cemetery on 
which the Apennine looks down. 

Bat it was not long before this sorrow was followed by 
a very much sorer one — by the worst of all that could 
have happened to me. After what I have written in the 
last chapter it is needless to say anything of the blank de- 
spair that fell upon me when my wife died, on the 13th of 
April, 1865. She also lies near the others. 

My house was indeed left unto me desolate, and I 
thought that life and all its sweetness was over for me. 

I immediately took measures for disposing of the house 
in the Piazza dell' Independenza, and before long found a 
purchaser for it. I had bought it when the speculator, 
who had become the owner of the ground at the corner of 
the space which was beginning to assume the semblance 
of a " square" or " piazza " had put in the foundations, but 
had not proceeded much further with his work. I com- 
pleted it, improving largely, as I thought, on his plan ; 
adapted it for a single residence, instead of its division 
into sundry dwellings ; obtained possession of additional 
ground between the house and the city wall, sufficient for 
a large garden; built around it, looking to the south, the 
largest and handsomest "stanzone"* for orange and lem- 
on plants in Florence, and gathered together a collection 
of very fine trees, the profits from which (much smaller 
in my hands than would have been the case in those of a 
Florentine to the manner born) nevertheless abundantly 
sufficed to defray the expenses of the garden and garden- 
ers. In a word, I made the place a very complete and 
comfortable residence. Nearly the whole of my first mar- 
ried life was spent in it. And much of the literary work 
of my life has been done in it. 

I used in those days, and for very many years after- 
wards, to do all my writing standing ; and I strongly rec- 
ommend the practice to brother quill-drivers. Pauses, 
often considerable intervals, occur for thought while the 

* " Stanzone " is the term used in Tuscany to signify the buildings des- 
tined to shelter the " Agrumi," as the orange and lemon plants are called 
generically, in the winter ; which in Florence is too severe to permit of 
their being left in the open air. 



520 WHAT I REMEMBER. 

pen is in the hand. And if one is seated at a table, one 
remains sitting during these intervals. But if one is stand- 
ing, it becomes natural to one, during even a small pause, 
to take a turn up and down the room, or even, as I often 
used to do, in the garden. And such change and move- 
ment I consider eminently salutary both for mind and 
body. 

I had specially contrived a little window immediately 
above the desk at which I stood, fixed to the wall. The 
room looking on the " loggia," which was the scene of the 
little poem transcribed in the preceding chapter, was abun- 
dantly lighted, but I liked some extra light close to my 
desk. 

In that room my Bice was born. For it was subsequent- 
ly to her birth that the destination of it was changed from 
a bedroom to a study. 

Few men have passed years of more uncheckered hap- 
piness than I did in that house. And I was very fond of it. 

But, as may readily be imagined, it became all the more 
odious and intolerable to me when the " angel in the 
house " had been taken from me. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

CONCLUSION. 

AssuEEDLY it seemed to me that all was over, and the 
future a dead blank ; and for a time I was as a man 
stunned. 

But in truth it was very far otherwise. I was fifty- 
five ; but I was in good health, young for my years, 
strong and vigorous in constitution, and before a year had 
passed it began to seem to me that a future, and life and 
its prospects, might open to me afresh ; that the curtain 
might be dropped on the drama that was passed, and a 
new phase of life begun. 

I had had and vividly enjoyed an entire life, according 
to the measure that is meted out to many, perhaps I may 
say to most men. But I felt myself ready for another. 
And — thanks this time also to a woman — I have had an- 
other, in no wise less happy, in some respects, as less 
checkered by sorrows — more happy than the first. I am 
in better health too, having outgrown, apparently, several 
of the maladies which young people are subject to. 

Of this second life I am not now going to tell my read- 
ers anything. " What I remember " of my first life may 
be, and I hope has been, told frankly, without giving of- 
fence or annoyance to any human being. I don't know 
that the telling of the story of my second life would nec- 
essarily lead me to say anything which could hurt any- 
body. But, mixed up as its incidents and interests and 
associations have been with a great multitude of men 
and women still living and moving and talking and writ- 
ing round about me, I should not feel myself so com- 
fortably at liberty to write whatever offered itself to my 
memory. 

Ten years hence, perhaps ("Please God, the public 
lives !" as a speculative showman said), I may tell the 



522 



WHAT I REMEMBER. 



reader, if he cares to hear it, the story of my second life. 
For the present we will break off here. 

But not without some words of parting kindness — and, 
shall we say, wisdom ! — from an old man to readers, most 
of whom probably might be his sons, and many doubtless 
his grandsons. 

Especially, my young friends, don't pay overmuch at- 
tention to what the Psalmist says about "the years of 
man." I knew dans le temps a fine old octo- and nearly 
nonogenarian, one Graberg de Hemso, a Swede (a man 
with a singular history, who passed ten years of his early 
life in the British navy, and was, when I knew him, libra- 
rian at the Pitti Palace in Florence), who used to com- 
plain of the Florentine doctors that " Dey doosen't know 
what de nordern constitooshions is !" and I take it the 
same may be said of the Psalmist. Ten years beyond 
threescore and ten need not be all sorrow and trouble. 
Depend upon it, kindly nsilwr Q—prudens, as that jolly old 
fellow, fine gentleman, and true philosopher, Horace, saj^-s 
in a similar connection — kindly nature knows how to make 
the closing decade of life every whit as delightful as any 
of the preceding, if only you don't balk her purposes. 
Don't weigh down your souls, and pin your particles of 
divine essence to earth by your yesterday's vices ; be sure 
that when you cannot jump over the chairs so featly as 
you can now, you will not want to do so ; tell the girls, 
Avith genial old Anacreon, when the time comes, that 
whether the hairs on your forehead be many or few, you 
know not, but do know well that it behooves an old man 
to be cheery in proportion to the propinquity of his exit, 
and go on your way rejoicing through this beautiful world, 
which not even the Radicals have quite spoiled yet. 

And so d rivederci — au revoir — auf Wiedersehn — why 
have we no English equivalent better than " Here's to our 
next pleasant meeting !" 



INDEX. 



Abbaye-aux-Bois, at the, 188, 189. 

Abbey, Reading, Mary Mitford's 
project concerning, 498. 

Aberdeen, Lord, and Lord Cowley, 
310. 

Abingdon Road, pedestrian feat on, 
151. 

Abrams, the Misses, 329. 

Absolute, Sir A., my representation 
of, 416. 

Academical career, my, a failure,150. 

Acheron pavement, 156. 

Ackland, Captain, 446. 

Adam, Sir Frederick, 479. 

Adam the forger, Dante's, 454. 

Adams, John Quincy, Grattau on, 
503. 

Adventure on the Danube, 216, 21*7. 

Advertising, modern, 31, 32. 

Affinities, elective, 382. 

Age not counted by years, 485. 

Alabama, Miss Wright's property in, 
107. 

Aladdin's lamp, G. Eliot wishes for, 
479. 

Alban Hall, I matriculate at, 132 ; as 
it was under Whately, 133; mem- 
bership of, disastrous to me, 146 ; 
cause of my (fuitting it, 146. 

Albani, Margherita, 479. 

Alberi, Signor, 405, 421. 

Albertazzi in 1840, 315. 

Ale versus claret, 33. 

Alexis, thought-reader of Paris, 272. 

Alinari, photographer at Florence, 
441. 

All the Year Round, contributions to, 
358. 

Alleghany Mountains, beauty of, 115, 

America, my brother's book on, criti- 
cised by Lewes, 479; Irish in, Grat- 
tan on, 500. 

American ladv at Tuileries, 313. 



American stabbed at Naples, 8. \ 

Americans, my experience of, 117, \ 

118, 126, 127; rigging a sledge, \ 

240 ; at the Pitti Palace, 347 ; an- j 

ecdote of, 347 ; meeting Lewes at 

G. P. Marsh's, 465. ! 

Amiens, excursion to, 325, 326. 
Ampere, his eloge at the Academy 

by Arago, 315. 
Amphytrion, Venice as, 384. 
Amusements of childhood, 15. 
Anabaptist, 10, 11. 
Anacreon on old age, 522. 
Angelico, Fra, 256. 
Antagonism with G. Eliot, subject of, 

484. 
Antagonist, G. Eliot as an, 484. 
Antiboini, the, 449. 
Antiques, modern, in " Our Village," 

499. 
Antonelli, Cardinal, 449. 
Antwerp, from, to Dover, 240. 
Apennines, grand duke crossing 

the, 350,' figure representing the, 

by Michael Angelo, 421 ; scenery 

among the, 455, 456. 
Apoplexy, man dying of, anecdote of, 

412. 
Appony, Comte d', his receptions in 

Paris, 315. 
April fool, Grattan an, 501. 
Arago, M., at the Academy, 315. 
Archduchess Sophie, 493. 
Archduchesses, sweetness of, 491. 
Arezzo, marshes near, 348 ; Pulszky 

at, 433 ; G. Eliot wishes to see, 482. 
Aristotle's "Ethics," 152; Natural 

Science, 478. 
Arithmetic, ignorance of, 102. 
Armv, Tuscan, attitude of, at the 

Revolution, 422, 423. 
" Arnaldo da Brescia," Niccolini's, 

507. 



524 



INDEX. 



Arno river in flood, 342, 343; the, 

454. 
Articulation, George Eliot's, 468. 
Ashley, Lord, letter from, 280. 
Aspirates, Landor used to drop them, 

440. 
Aspirations, early, 276. 
Athenceum, my wife's letters in the, 

507, 508. 
Atlantic, passage across, 110-114. 
Atlantic Monthly on Landor, 441. 
Aubrey, Miss, 330. 
Aumale, Duke of, 311. 
Aunt, Dante's, 471. 
Aural circulation, Lewes on, 477. 
"Aurora Leigh," Mrs. Browning's, 

396. 
Austen, Miss, 45 ; Mary Mitford's 

idol, 496. 
Austin, Alfred, 453. 
Austria, Mary Mitford on, 498 ; Na- 
poleon Ill's negotiations with, 

398. 
Austrian empire, heterogeneousness 

of, 226; troops in Florence, 390, 

406 ; officers, anecdote of, 390. 
Authority of prefects at Winchester, 

87. 
Authorship, my first, 104. 
Autobiography, my brother's, 158; 

G.Eliot on," 485. 
Autograph collectors, 440. 
Autograph of Byron, remarkable, 64. 
Autolycus, his song, 276. 
Auvergnats at Paris, 183. 
Auvergne, pedestrianizing in, 321 ; 

dialect of, 321. 
Aylmer, Admiral, 446 ; Lord, 446. 
Azeglio, Massino d', anecdote of, 341. 

Baby Beatrice, 512. 

'• Backwoodsman, Young," Mary Mit- 
ford asks about, 494. 

Baden in Switzerland, 486. 

"Badger," my nickname at Win- 
chester, 118. 

Badger-baiting, Winchester, 75, 76. 

Bagni Caldi at Lucca Baths, 365. 

Baiae, excursion to, G. Eliot's, 483. 

Balzac's suppressed play, 335. 

Bamberg, 12; Baroness Zandt at, 
325. 

Banagher, my brother at, 327. 

Bancroft, the Historian, Grattan on, 
503 ; his anti-Whig politics, 503. 



Barbaras, Hermolaus, 478. 

Barclay, Captain, 151. 

Bardi family, the, at Florence, 474. 

Barge, from Bruges to Ostend, 201. 

Bargello, at Florence, Dante's por- 
trait in, 442. 

Baritone of our way, Lewes, 477. 

Barrett, Elizabeth, at Torquay, 391 ; / 
Theodosia Garrow's appreciation ( 
of, 392 ; her affection for Isa Blag- 
den, 393 ; Landor on, 445 ; Mary 
Mitford's admiration for, 498. , 

Bartley, Mr., and Mary Mitford, 499. 

Bartolomei, Marchese, 389. 

Bath, and W. S. Landor, 443. 

Bathing, death from excessive, 202, 
203. 

Batten, Rev. Mr., 50. 

Bavaria, ramble in, 325. 

Bay-tree, Wordsworth's, 284. 

Beacon Terrace, Torquay, Mrs. 
Browning at, 402. 

" Beata, La," my novel, Lewes and G. 
Eliot on, 475; Mrs. Carlyle on, 
476. 

Beatrice, ray daughter, George Eliot 
on, 477. 

Beattie's "Young Edwin," illus- 
trated, 155. 

Beaufort, Duke of, 448. 

Bedford, Duke of, 2. 

Bedford Square, 2. 

Bedsteads at Winchester, 92, 93. 

Beer-cellar at Winchester, 70. 

Belgian cities, tour among, 170. 

Belgiojoso, Princess, 198. 

Belgium, tour with Fannv Bent in, 
175, 176. 

Belial, Bishop, Landor calls Philpotts 
a, 444. 

Bell, Jockey, 33. 

Bellosguardo, at Florence, 393. 

Ben Jonson's superstition, Mary Mit- 
ford on, 498. 

Benjamin, my mother's, 491. 

Bent, Fanny, 23, 26, 171, 175, 176. 

Bent, Mary, 23. 

Bent, Rev. John, 23. 

Bentley, Mr. Richard, 182. 

"Beppo the Conscript" written in 
twenty-four days, 248, 249. 

Bereavements, different, 488. 

Berkeley, Grantley, and Landor, 446. 

Berington's " Middle Ages," 380. 

Berrver, 194. 



INDEX. 



525 



Beiti Palazzo, in Florence, 837, 338. 
Bezzi, Signor A., and Landor, 442- 

444. 
Bible, persecution for reading the, 

348. 
Bier, open, used in Florence, 410. 
" Biglow Papers," Lowell's, 470. 
Biographies, G. Eliot on, 485. 
Birmingham, mastership at, offered 
me, 176; delays and disappoint- 
ments about it, 177, 178 ; con- 
tinued disappointment, 204 ; I as- 
sume my duties at, 242; difficulties 
of them, 243 ; my life at, 245, 246 ; 
I resign my position at, 247 ; my 
return from, 488. 

Bismarck and Metternich, contrast 
between, 228, 229. 

Bismarck, Prince, 228, 229. 

Blackbird, Song of the, 513. 

Black Down, Tennyson's house at, 
468. 

Black Forest, Leweses in the, 482. 

BlackwooiVs Magazine, Mary Mitford 
on, 496. 
1 Blagden, Isa, Miss, 393 ; her poems, 

I 393; her death, 394; note from, 

\ 894; Lewes inquires after, 478; 

^ and George Eliot, 484. 

Blandford Square, Leweses at, 474. 

Blaze de Bury, Mad;ime, 824. 

Blessington, Lady, 442, 445. 

Bloomsbury S(|uare, 2. 

Boat on the Danube, description of, 
214, 215. 

Bob Acres, my representation of, 
416. 

Boboli Gardens, the, at Florence, 
421 ; anecdote of Lady Bulwer in, 
338. 

Bohemia, grand duke's estates in, 346. 

Bohemian wagoners, 226. 

Bologna, grand duke on way to, 350; 
Austrians at, 898; "la Grassa," 
410. 

Boodh, Landor on, 447. 

"Book of Beauty," Lady Blessing- 
ton's, 402, 445. 

Booksellers, Landor eschews all, 447. 

Bordeaux, conversations at, 321. 

Borgo, San Sepolcro, Pulszky at, 433. 

Bosco, the conjurer, 274. 

Boston Consulate, Grattan on leave 
from, 500 ; Society of, Grattan on 
the, 502. 



" Boto," Florentine for " Voto," 475. 
Bourbonnais, travels in, 321. 
Boutourlin family, 337. 
Bowen, Colonel, 268. 
Bower, Fungy, 102. 
Bowring, Lucy, 28. 
Bowring, Sir John, 27. 
Boy, whole duty of, 9. 
Braddons, the, at Torquay, 381, 391. 
Brahmin Princess, my wife's grand- 
mother, 506. 
Brest, 293. 

Bretons, changes in character of, 288. 
Brewster, Sir David, 261, 262. 
Brightness, my mother's value for, 

490. 
Brittany, summer in, 210; book on, 

287, 288, 292 ; costume in, 290. 
Broons in Brittany, costume of, 290, 
291; innkeeper's daughter at, 290, 
291. 
Brougham Castle, 299. 
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, special- 
ties of her character, 392, 393 ; let- 
ters from, 395-403 ; on Napoleon 
IIL, 398, 899 ; her absolute truth- 
fulness, 400 ; and Theodosia Gar- 
row, 402; her handwriting, 400; 
her death, Lewes on, 476 ; on 
Theodosia Trollope's faculty, 506. 
Browning, Oscar, 481. f' 

Browning, Robert, 403 ; at Florence, / 
892 ; his care for Landor in Flor- / 
ence, 440. f 

Brown's "Vulgar Errors," 152. 
Bruges, I join my parents at, 168 ; 
return to, June, 1835, 201 ; my 
mother quits, 207. 
Bull, Rev. Mr., of Bradford, 281. 
BuUer, Dean, 27. 
Bullock, Reuben, 280. 
Bully, an Irish, 372. 
Bullying at Harrow, 54. 
Bulwer, Henry, at Pari.s, 805. 
Bulwer, Lady, at Florence, 882 ; her 
character, 332, 333 ; anecdote of, 
883, 336 ; in Boboli Gardens, 333 ; 
letters from her, 334-836. 
Bulwer, Lord, Landor on, 447. 
Burial, of Byron's daughter at Har- 
row, 64 ; manner of, in- Florence, 
410; premature, fear of, 518. 
Burridge, Landor's landlady at Tor- 
quay, 443. 
Burton's " Anatomv," 152. 



526 



INDEX. 



Butcher's wife, anecdote of the, 311. 

Butler, Rev. Dr., 50, 51, 62. 

Butt, Dr., M.D., 55, 56. 

Butter not used by Tuscans, 454. 

Byron, Lord, 64, 396. 

Cadogan, Lady Honoria, 315. 

Caen, bookseller at, anecdote of, 210, 
211. 

Caennarthen in assize time, 153. 

" Cain," Byron's, Harry Drury and 
the vicar on, 64. 

Calais, journey to, 168; journey from, 
to Ostend, 169 ; crossing to, Lewes 
on, 483. 

Calling "Domum" at Winchester, 
75. 

Calomel, use of, 41. 

Camaldoli, Sagro Eremo, porter at, 
1 ; with George Eliot to, 421, 450, 
453 ; Padre forestieraio at, 456. 

Cambridge, near Boston, notable men 
there, 503. 

Canada, 503. 

Cancellieri, Francesco, his mode of 
writing, 295. 

Cane vermis rod, 244. 

(Janigiani family at Florence, 475. 

Canino, Prince, 385 ; is marched off 
to the frontier, 385 ; his sale of 
his title, 385 ; his personal ap- 
pearance, 385, 386. 

Canterbury, walk in snow to, 241. 

Capstone Hill, at Hfracombe, 330. 

Caravan, sumnmm bomim, 323. 

Carev, translator of Dante, with Miss 
Mitford, 499. 

Carlo, San, theatre at Naples, George 
Eliot at, 483. 

Carlsruhe, 304. 

Carlton Hill at Penrith, 330. 

Carlyle, Mrs., her description of 
personal appearance of Dickens, 
355 ; on my novel, " La Beata," 
476. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 31, 182; his de- 
scription of Dickens' person, 351 ; 
Landor on, 447 ; and Anthony 
Trollope, 476. 

Carmelite monastery, library at, 170. 

Carnival at Rome, 408 ; at Florence, 
408. 

" Casa Colonica," Tuscan, 405. 

Casentino, the, 462. 

Casino dei Nobili at Florence, 345. 



Casuistry, extraordinary, 170. 

Catacombs at Vienna, 237. 

Cathedral in Florence and Mr. Sloane, 
337 ; burial of priest in, anecdote 
of, 410. 

Cathedral service sixtv vears ago, 58, 
59. 

Catherine's, St., Hill, Winchester, 74, 
75. 

Cavour, my wife's account of his 
death, George Eliot on, 477. 

Cemeterv, Protestant, at Florence, 
517, 519. 

Chadwick, Captain, 110, 111. 

Chalk-pit on St. Catherine's Hill, 77. 

Chambers at Winchester, 92 ; disci- 
pline in, 93, 94. 

Champion, the, at the Pitti, anecdote 
of, 346. 

Chancery Lane, 33. 

Chancery report, extraordinary, 34. 

Changes, social, 17-20. 

Clianging horses, coach, 25. 

Channing, Dr., of Boston, Grattan 
on, 503. 

Chapel-going at Winchester, 96. 

Chaplains at Winchester, 97, 98. 

Chapm.an, General, 43. 

Chapone, Mrs., 159. 

Chappell, Mr. Arthur, dinner with, 
361. 

Character from school, my, 17. 

Charity at Winchester and at Har- 
row, 54. 

Charles Dix, 184. 

Charlotte, Princess, 11. 

Charlotte, Queen, 163. 

Chateaubriand, 187-190, 335. 

Chateau d'Hondt, at Bruges, 169. 

Cheapness at the Baths of Lucca, 
366. 

Cheddar Cliffs, excursion to, 131. 

Chelsea, tea at, 476. 

Cliiaja at Naples, George Eliot on 
the, 483. 

Chiana, draining marshes of, 348. 

Chianti wine, price of, 344. 

Chiusi, marshes near, 348. 

Chorley, Henry, and Mary Mitford, 
498 ; at Heckfield, 498. 

Church, the, Landor on, 447. 

Church, English, Dickens on the, 362. 

Cincinnati, my mother's house at, 
116; country around, 117; Pow- 
ers, Hiram, at, 123, 124; life at. 



INDEX. 



527 



124-126 ; theatricals at, 126 ; plans 

at, 128. 
Citta di Castello, Pulszky at, 433. 
Claret versus ale, 32. 
Clarke, Miss (Mme. Mohl), 188, 197, 

315,335. 
Class, third, given me, 149. 
Classical lesson, giving, in London, 

171. 
"Classicus paper" at Winchester, 

102. 
Clements, Mrs., 245. 
Cleniow, Mr. and Mrs., of the Royal 

Hotel, Ilfracombe, 330. 
Clergy, French, in 1840,317; Guizot 

on the, 317. 
Clergyman's escape from burning 

ship, 144. 
Clericalism at Florence, 409. 
Clifden, Turbot at, 328. 
Coaches, names of, 5. 
Coachman, 24, 25. 
"Cobbler, Northern, The," read by 

Tennyson, 469. 
Cocked hat of master at Winchester 

disused, 82. 
Coincidence, singular, 130. 
Coins in use at Florence, 343. 
Coker, Mrs., 330. 
Colburn, Mr., 289 ; and LadyBulwer, 

335. 
Coleridge, S. T., 208. 
Colico on Lake Como, 505. 
College and commons at Winchester, 

54. 
Collins, Wilkie, story by, 358 ; dinner 

with, 361. 
Colloquial use of a language must 

be learned young, 419. 
Cologne, 304. 

Colonna Vittoria, 463, 464. 
Columbia, near Cincinnati, Mr. Long- 
worth's estate, 122. 
" Commercial gentlemen, " dinner 

with, 153, 154. 
Commons, House of, Dickens on, 362. 
"Commonwealth of Florence," my 

history of the, 417. 
Como, Lake of, 505 ; George Eliot 

at, 480. 
" Compagnatico," Tuscan, 404. 
Composition, George Eliot's difficulty 

in, 481 ; literary, Grattan on, 

501. 
Confectioner revisited, 2. 



" Confessor's Manual," 357. 

Congress, member of, 503. 

Congresses, Italian Scientific, 383, 
384. 

Conservatism forced on me, 484. 

Consolation, child's, in confinement, 
516 n. 

Consul, British, at Boston, Grattan, 
500 ; Mr. Grattan addressed as, 
503. 

Consulship at Boston, Grattan on 
the, 503. 

Consultations and plans, my moth- 
er's and mine, 331. 

" Contadini," Tuscan, 404. 

"Continent" at Wincliester, 83. 

Conversation sixty years since, anec- 
dote of, 160. 

Convocation, Dickens on, 359. 

Copper mine near Volterra, 518. 

Coquerel, Athanase, his preaching, 
316. 

" Corduroy " roads, 115. 

Corinne, a new, 383. 

Corinthian, the ship, 110. 

Cornhill Magazine, 394. 

Cornish jury, verdict of, 439. 

Corporal punishment, objections to, 
80, 81. 

Correggio, book on, by Signor Mig- 
naty, 479. 

Correspondence of London paper, 
484. 

" Country Stories," Mary Mitford's, 
498. 

Courage, my boyish notion of, 50. 

Courier, Austrian, 239. 

Court, American Supreme, Judge 
Story of the, 503. 

Cousin, 190; his philosophy obsolete, 
317. 

Covent Garden Theatre, Mary Mit- 
ford's play at, 499. 

Cowley, Lady, as ambassadress, 310. 

Cowley, Lord, ambassador in Paris, 
310. 

Cowper's home at Olney, Mary Mit- 
ford on, 499. 

Cramer, Jolm, 92, 225, 371. 

" Crazy Jane," authoress of, 377. 

Crediton, near Exeter, 23. 

Cricket, changes in, 103. 

Crime almost unknown in Grand- 
ducal Florence, 407. 

Croatian gypsies, 226. 



528 



INDEX. 



Croce, Santa, church of, in Florence, 

and Mr. Sloane, 337. 
Cross, Mr., his "Life of George 

Eliot," 461. 
Cross, St., near Winchester, 75. 
Cruikshank and Lady Bulwer, 334. 
Cunningham, Rev. Mr., 62, 63, 105. 
Curwen, Mr., flooding of his mine, 

499. 

Palling, Lord, at Paris, 305 ; at 
Florence, 305. 

Dair Ongaro, the poet, 399, 401, 427. 

Dannecker, the sculptor, 217. 

Dante, his portrait at Florence, 442. 

Dante's holgia^ representation of, at 
Cincinnati, 123, 124. 

Danube, boats on, 212, 213. 

Deak, Pulszky's visits to, 434. 

Dean Rennell, a Platonist, 99, 100 ; 
anecdotes of, 100. 

Deans, cousins of Mary Mitford, 
497. 

Death in the street at Florence, anec- 
dote of, 412. 

Death of Lewes's son, 485. 

Deathbeds, taste for, George Eliot's, 
477. 

Debating society at Birmingham, 245. 

Decade of Italian women, my book 
on, 417. 

Decade, last of life, 521 ; how to en- 
joy the, 522. 

Decision, a momentous, 331. 

Deck, nights on, 110, 111. 

Degree, examination for my, 149 ; I 
take my, 178. 

D'Henin, 306 ; Mdlle., 307 ; her let- 
ters to my mother, 307 et seq. ; at 
Tuileries ball, 310, 311; her death, 
313. 

"Dehors Trompeurs, Les," Mdlle. 
Mars in, 314. 

Dilirant reges plectutitur Achivi, 147. 

Delirium, my, in typhus, 55. 

Democrat, Le, French newspaper, 
anecdote of, 318. 

De Morgan, 253. 

Departure of the duke from Flor- 
ence, 423. 

Deputies, Chamber of, opening of, 
in 1840, 309; at the, 316. 

Desk, writing, standing at, 520. 

Devonport Mail (Quicksilver), 23. 

Devonshire farmer, a, 389. 



De Whelpdale, lord of manor, Pen- 
rith, 304. 

Dexter, Arthur, of Boston, 470. 

Dialect, provincial, affected, 26 ; 
Devonshire, 30; Florentine, 418; 
anecdote of lady speaking, 418, 
419; provincial, as read by Tenny- 
son, 469 ; George Eliot on use of, 
475. 

Dialectical Society, letter to the, 266. 

Dibden, Dr., 277 ; his preaching, 277. 

Dickens, Charles, 20 ; first meeting 
with, 351 ; personal appearance of 
in early youth, 351 ; subsequently, 
351-363; was near-sighted, 353; 
his manner, 353 ; his so-called ex- 
aggerations, 354 ; his character, 
854, 355 ; his opinions on Italy, 
356 ; on public schools, 356 ; let- 
ters from, 356-362 ; on convoca- 
tions, 359 ; on Gibson the sculptor, 
359, 360 ; on Italian political situ- 
ation, 360 ; on Louis Napoleon, 
360 ; on Home, the Medium, 360 ; 
introduces me to my first wife, 
361; on the general elections, 361; 
on the House of Commons, 362 ; 
on the English Church, 362; on 
my brother's standing for Bever- 
ley, 362 ; last letter from, 363. 

Dickson, Colonel, 203. 

Dinner, in hall at Winchester, 73 ; 
with the Austrian mail, 239; go- 
ing with glee to, 489. 

Director of Museum, Pesth, 436. 

Disaffection in Tuscanv, beginning 
of, 405. 

Discipline by night at Winchester, 
84, 85. 

Dispers at Winchester, 72. 

Dissenters sixty years ago, 46. 

Distribution of rations at Winches- 
ter, 73. 

Divinity lectures at Oxford, 168. 

Docks, the, 7. 

Doherty, John, 280. 

Dolgelly, ancient custom at, 154. 

Doney's coffee-house at Florence, 342. 

Don Giovanni, Protestant, 367, 375. 

Dons, Oxford, disliked Whately, 136. 

Door of Fourth Chamber, anecdote, 
94. 

Dorfeuille, M., 122, 123. 

Dormitories at Winchester, 92. 

Douarnenez, sardine fishing, etc., 293. 



INDEX. 



529 



Doubt of death, 518. 

Dover to London in 1834, 171 ; un- 
der snow, 240. 

Doyle, Sir F., his reminiscences, 294. 

Dramatic College, Royal, Dickens at, 
356. 

Dresden as a residence, 331. 

Drinking-song, sung by Mr. Du Mau- 
rier, 468. 

Driving, in America, 115,116; French, 
181. 

Drury Lane in 1834, 168. 

Drury, Mrs. Mark, 52, 53. 

Drury, Rev. Harry, 50, 62-64. 

Drury, Rev. Mark, 50-53, 63. 

Drury, Rev. William, 50. 

Duels at Baths of Lucca, 373, 374. 

Dulan, M., 211. 

"Dulce Domum," 69. 

Du Maurier, Mr., 487. 

Du Maurier, Mr. and Mrs., 468. 

Dunkirk, journey to, 169 ; hospitable 
Frenchman at, 169. 

Dupin at the Chamber, 316. 

Dupin and Lady Bulwer, 335. 

Dupotet, Baron, 253, 254. 

Dusty slioes, 172. 

Dyer, Lady, 12, 491 ; General Sir 
"Thomas, 12,491. 

Dymock, Champion, at Florence, 346. 

Easter devotions, 454. 

Echo song in " Comus," translation 

of, 160. 
Edenhall, in Cumberland, 298 ; luck 

of, 300, 301. 
Edgware Road, 22. 
Edwards, Mrs., 55. 
Eldon, Lord, 34, 267. 
Election in Ireland, 329 ; General, 

Dickens on, 361 ; in Hungary, cost 

of, 434 ; Hungarian, 436. 
Eliot, George, 125. 
Elliotson, Dr., 255-258. 
Elm Court, Temple, Sergeant Tal- 

fourd's address, 497. 
English government and Tuscany, 

398. 
Enghsh language, not taught, 101 ; 

George Eliot on the, 471. 
Enunciation, George Eliot's, 471. 
Eotvos, Baron, and Pulszky, 434. 
Eremo, Sagro, at Camaldoli, 458 ; 

rule there, 459 ; ride up to, 458 ; 

inmates of, 460. 
23 



Error in post-mark, singular, 481. 

Erysipelas, attack of, cured by ho- 
moeopathy, 493, 494. 

Esterhazy, his picture-gallery, 436. 

Eternal City, French hated in, 406. 

Evangelicanism, 10. 

Evans, Rev. Mr., 50. 

Events in life dreaded by me, 50. 

Everett, Ed., G rattan on, 503. 

Examiner, the, criticism of, on my 
first wife's letters, 508. 

Exchange of portraits, 492. 

Exclusiveness, social, less common 
than formerly, 37. 

Exe, valley of the, 27. 

Exemplum vitiis imitabile, 248. 

Exeter Cathedral, 27 ; changes in, 
29 ; garden in, 29, 30. 

Ex-governor, pompous, and Grattan, 
503. 

Expectations, my, disappointed, 47. 

Experiences, new, 114. 

Factory legislation, 279, 280 ; lords, 

leaders of, 281. 
Faculty, multiform, my first wife's, 

506. 
Fads, the vicar's, 14, 15. 
Fagging at Harrow, 54 ; at Winches- 
ter, 54 ; difference between the 

two, 54. 
"Falkland" in the Rivals, by Sir 

F. Vincent, 416. 
Falstaff, my impersonation of, 126. 
" Falstaff House," of Dickens, 359. 
Falterona, rivers rising in Mount, 

376 ; the mountain, 454. 
Fanny Bent, 330. 
Farmer, nurse, 10, 11. 
Farnham, The Bush, 66. 
Farren, the actor, 168, 
Fauche, Mr. 169, 202. 
Fauche, Mrs. 169, 202, 209, 304. 
Fauriel, M., 315. 
Fayette, La, General, 106, 189. 
Fellow-passengers in steerage, 110, 

112. 
Fete, national, at Florence, 479. 
Field, Miss, 399 ; a favorite with Lan- 

dor, 441 ; returns his present of a 

scrap-book, 441. 
Fieschi, conspirator, 184. 
Fiesole, Landor's villa at, 353. 
Fifth of November in College Chapel, 

99. 



530 



INDEX. 



Fighting at Winchester, anecdote, 

118. 
Filippo Strozzi, my book on, 417. 
Finance committee, Pesth, Pulszky 

on, 436. 
Finden's tableau, 498. 
Fine Arts Society at Pesth, Pulszky 

chairman of, 436. 
Finisterre, at, 296 ; anecdote of, 296, 

297. 
Flrenze la Gentile^ 408 ; no longer 

such, 409. 
Firing on Florence, orders for, 423 ; 

duke never gave such, 423. 
Firs on St. Catherine's Hill, Win- 
chester, 76. 
Fisher, Harriet, my wife's half-sis- 
ter, 377, 515 ; her character, 378 ; 
her death, 379 ; her brother, 379 ; 
always a peacemaker, 381 ; her 
beneficent influence, 388. 
Fives at Winchester, 102. 
Fives hat, peculiar, 103. 
Flanders, French, rambles in, 201, 

323. 
Flavia, verses on, by my first wife, 

512. 
Fleece, Golden, installation of knights, 

236. 
Fleet prison, 33. 

Flint, Mrs., and Mary Mitford, 495. 
Flog, word not used at Winchester, 

80. 
Flood in Florence, 341, 342. 
Florence decided on as a residence, 
331 ; departure from London for, 
332; society of, 338 ; flood at, 341, 
842 ; coins in use at, 343 ; cheap- 
ness of life at, 344 ; police at, 348, 
407; revolution at, 350; number 
of English residing at, 391; singu- 
lar social change at, 407 ; social 
changes in, causes of, 409 ; my 
History of, 480; Lewes criticises, 
481 ; leading medical practitioner 
at, 489. 
Florentine nobles, 345 ; character- 
istics, 412. 
*' Flower de Luce," the, 67. 
Flower-garden, Mary Mitford's, 499. 
Fonblanque, Mr. Landor on, 445. 
Fontebranda fountain, 454. 
Fool, April, Grattan is made an, 501. 
Foreign Affairs committee at Pesth, 
Pulszky on, 436. 



Forest, primeval, disappoints me, 
115. 

Forster, Mr., on Dickens, 353, 355, 
356 ; his life of Landor, 438, 509 ; 
portraits prefixed to, 439, 441 ; 
Landor gives him all his works, 
447. 

Fortezza da Basso at Florence, grand 
duke at, 350; in Florentine revolu- 
tion, 421. 

Fortnightly Review^ 480. 

" Fortunes of Nigel," 33. 

Fouche, police minister, 234, 236. 

Founder's Commemoration, 99. 

Founder's Obit, 99. 

" Fountain " inn, Canterbury, at the, 
241, 242. 

France, central, journey through, 
320 ; which portion most interest- 
ing, 320. 

Franchi, book by G. H. Lewes, read- 
ing, 483. 

Franchise, the, Whately on, 143. 

Francis, St., and Pulszky, 434. 

Franz Vater, Austrian emperor, 224, 
225. 

Fy-aser's Magazine^ Mary Mitford on, 
496. 

French hated at Rome, 406. 

French prisoners. College dole to, 71. 

Frescobaldi family at Florence, 475. 

Friday receptions, my mother's, in 
Florence, 338, 381 ; my mother's 
whist parties, 490. 

Friends, my mother's, in youth and 
age, 490. 

Fulham, walk to, 152. 

Fun, my mother's love of, 490. 

Gabell, Dr., of Winchester, 12, 67, 

87, 88, 89, 492. 
Gabell, Miss, 12, 492. 
Gaffer WiUiams, 77. 
" Gaffarel's Curiosities," 152. 
Galicia, peasants from, 226. 
Galileo, new edition of work of, 478 ; 

Milan edition of, 478. 
Gambling - tables at Lucca Baths, 

365. 
Garcia, P., in 1840, 315. 
Garibaldi, and Dickens, 359 ; Col. 

Peard's judgment of, 427, 428; 

my remembrance of- him, 428 ; 

visits me at Ricorboli, 429 ; his 

personal appearance, 429 ; dispute 



INDEX. 



531 



with him, a, 430 ; at Palermo, 
431. 

Garrow, Judge, SVY. 

Garrow, Mr. Joseph, SVe-SYS, 880, 
388, 389 ; Landor's letters to, 481 ; 
his musical talent, 506 ; a very 
exacting father, 515; his death, 
517, 518. 

Garrow, Mrs., 376, 377, 380, 381. 

Garrow, Theodosia, 377 ; her posi- 
tion in her family, 379 ; her fort- 
une and prospects, 379 ; her per- 
sonal appearance, 382 ; her ances- 
tors, 382 ; in Rome, 387, 388 ; her 
Church opinions, 388 ; as an in- 
mate, 388; at the "Braddons," 
891 ; her appreciation of Miss 
Barrett, 392, 407; and Landor, 
442-445, See TroUope, Theodosia. 

Gastronomy and L. E. L., 163. 

Gedge, Mr., 243. 

Gennaro, Monte, near Rome, 77. 

Genoa, fishing near, 293 ; La Super- 
ba, 409. 

Geography, early studies in, 5. 

George Eliot. See Lewes, Mrs. 

Germany, life in, 153; journey in, 
212; South, impression of, 218; 
Leweses in, 482. 

Ghosts of memor^v, 391. 

Gianchetti and whitebait, 294. 

Gibbon, Mrs., 42. 

Gibbon, Kate, 42, 43. 

Gibson, the sculptor, 360 ; Dickens 
on, 359, 360. 

Gig, " Virgil " lesson in the, 58 ; es- 
cape in the, 61. 

Giglio,Via del, at Florence, 341. 

Gilchrist, Dr., dinner given by, 315. 

Giotto's tower at Florence, 342, 390 ; 
anecdote concerning, 390 ; G. H. 
Lewes on, 478. 

Giusti, the poet, and Grand Duke of 
Tuscany, 348, 349, 367 ; my first 
wife's translations from, 507, 508. 

Gladstone, his age, George Eliot on, 
485 ; when a High Tory, 494. 

" Glass beads for savages," 514. 

Glee, going to dinner with, 489. 

Gloucester, adventure at, 59. 

Goethe, 227 ; his " Gretchen," first 
performance of, 227. 

Golden Fleece, install ation of knights, 
236. 

Gore House, 442, 445. 



Gothard, St., over the, Lewes's jour- 
ney, 476. 

Gothic architecture, Mary Mitford on, 
498. 

Gout, Sir F. Milman on, 163. 

Grammar, Latin, my introduction to, 
3. 

Grand Duchess Florentini, burial of, 
410. 

Grand Duke of Tuscany, 347-349 ; 
anecdote of, 350; exit of, from 
Tuscany, 350, 423, 424. 

Grandison, Sir Charles, readings in, 
42. 

Grange, La, La Fayette's estate, 106. 

Granger, Edmund, 30. 

Grant's family, 178, 204, 390. 

Granville, Lord, 138, 336 ; his recep- 
tions in Paris, 315. 

Grattan, Mrs., 500. 

Grattan, T. C, 162, 250, 255 ; consul 
at Boston, 500 ; letters from, 500- 
504 ; his message to me, 500 ; 
blank, no prize, 500; prepares 
new edition of "Highways and 
Byeways," 500; writes in North 
American Review, 500 ; endeav- 
ors to promote peace between Eng- 
land and America, 500; speaks 
of his seared heart, 501 ; pessi- 
mism as often deceptive as opti- 
mism, 501 ; not a fertile writer, 501 ; 
his advice to my mother as a 
writer, 502 ; visits Washington, 
602; doubts respecting his con- 
duct as consul, 503 ; writes on Ire- 
land, 503 ; proposes various travels, 
503 ; resolves to give up punning, 
503 ; his repartees, 503, 504. 

Graves, Miss, at Florence, 415. 

Graves, price-current of, 156. 

Gray-goose quill work, Grattan on, 
501. 

" Greek Slave," Power's statue of, 
122. 

Green, Joseph Henry, 208. 

Green tea and laudanum, effects of, 
490. 

Gregory XVI. a Camaldolese, 457 ; 
beans annually sent to, 460. 

Gresley mesalliance, 13. 

Greys, cousins of Mary Mitford, 497. 

Grisi in 1840, 315. 

Guard, National, in Paris, 186. 

Guidi, Casa, visits to, 392, 489. 



632 



INDEX. 



Guildhall, 6. 

Guizot, 190, 195, 196 ; on the French 

clergy, 317. 
Gumbrell, Dicky, 84. 
Gumbrell, Mother, 84. 
" Gush " and Mary Mitford, 499. 
Gyongyos in Hungary, election for, 

436. 

Hackney coaches, 20, 21. 

Haddon Hall, 277. 

Hadley, my mother settles at, 207 ; 
life at, 208 ; in the garden at, 247, 
248. 

Hahnemann's favorite pupil, 493. 

Haine, Notre Dame de la, 295. 

Haldon Down, 27. 

Haliburton (Sara Slick), 250. 

Halifax, 503. 

Hall, Alfred, and family at Florence, 
337. 

Hall, Captain Basil, 161, 162. 

Hall, Mr. Horace, and Mr. Sloane, 337, 
338. 

Hall, prefect of, at Winchester, 74, 
77, 78. 

Hall, Ptev. George, 176, 177. 

Haller, Dr., of Berlin, 485, 486 • on 
Lewes's philosophic work, 486. 

" Halls " and colleges at Oxford, 133. 

Hamilton, Captain, author of " Cyril 
Thornton," 283, 284 ; his boat on 
lake, 283, 284. 

Hamilton, Mr., minister at Florence, 
340. 

Hammond, Mr., 208. 

Hampstead, 6. 

Handwriting, Mary Mitford's, 494. 

Hare, Landor's friend, 447. 

Harmony, New, Miss Wright's prop- 
erty, 108. 

Harrison, American President, 500, 
502. 

Harrow, my father moves to, 43 ; 
farm at, 43; school, 48, 51, 54; 
masters, 60; my first appearance 
at, 50, 53 ; antagonisms at, 62 , vic- 
arage of, 63 ; scandal in parish 
church of, 63 ; extraordinary ves- 
try meeting at, 64 ; my parents 
quit, 105; Weald house at, 158; 
farm at, 105. 

Harrow days, old, 491. 

Hatred, Our Lady of, 295. 

Haymarket, the, sixty years ago, 39 



Hebraist, learned, 302. 

Heckfield, Mary Mitford at, 498. 

Heckfield vicarage, 9, 14 ; versus Ju- 
lians, 44. 

Heenan the pugilist, 347. 

Heidelberg, 304. 

Heights, Witley, 467 

Hennell, Miss Sara, Mrs. Lewes to, 
461, 472. 

Herbout, Dr., 175, 204. 

Heredity, question of, 243. 

Hereford, Bishop of, 68, 91, 92. 

Heretics, persecution of, 278. 

Hermolaus, Barbaras, 478. 

Hertford College, 147. 

Hertfordshire squire, a, sixty years 
ago, 44. 

Hervieu, M., 155, 211, 217, 218, 229, 
231 , his portrait of my mother, 
492. 

High - Church opinions, mv sister's, 
388. 

Highgate, 6. 

" Highways and Byeways," Grattan's, 
500 ; new edition of, 500. 

Hill, Frances, in " Our Village," 499. 

Hill, Herbert, Southey's nephew, 285. 

Hill, Joseph, Cowper's cousin, 499. 

Hill, Theodosia, in "Our Village," 
499 

Hinds, Mr., 134, 135. 

"History of Florence," my, G. H. 
Lewes's criticism of, 481 

"History of Philosophy," G H. 
Lewes's, 482. 

Hobhouse, Edward, at Florence, 415. 

'■'■ Hoc est Corpus,''^ Blanco White's 
anecdote of, 144. 

Hoche, General, his daughter, anec- 
dote of, 314. 

Hodgson, Mrs. Archdeacon, 164, 

Hofwyl, Leweses at, 476. 

Holborn, verse-making in, 4. 

Holland, society of, Grattan on, 502, 

Holland, Lord, Minister at Florence, 
339 ; anecdote of, 341 ; saved my 
mother's life, 489 ; Lady, 339. 

Homilies, passage from, 149, 150. 

Homoeopathic cure of erysipelas, 493. 

Hoopern Bowers, 27, 28. 

Hopkins, Damme, 98, 99. 

Hotisehold Words, my contributions 
to, 357. 

Hugel, Baron, 492, 493. 

Hugo, Victor, 192, 193. 



INDEX. 



i33 



Hume, Mr., the " Medium," 260-267, 

270-272; Dickens on, 360. 
Humor, that of George EUot, 566 ; 

that of Lewes, different, 466 ; my 

mother's sense of, 490. 
Hungarian gypsies, 226. 
Hungarian politics, Pulszky on, 434, 

435 ; elections, 434. 
Hungarians, 222 ; Pulszky proud of 

the, 436. 
Huntingford, Bishop of Hereford, 

89-92 ; his handwriting, 401. 
Hustings, fall of, 329. 
Hutchinson, Rachel, 28. 

Ilchester to Ilminster, 25. 

Ilfracombe, from, to Lynton, 61; 
visit to, 330; Royal Clarence Hotel 
at, 330. 

Impudence, Irish, notable case of, 
373. 

Independenza, Piazza delP, hi Flor- 
ence, 439. 

Index, the Roman Catholic, 380. 

Indian hand, my first wife's, 506. 

Indians, West, at Alban Hall, 134. 

Influenza and tragedy, Mary Mitford 
suffers from, 498. 

Lifra dig., or, hi for a dig ! 162. 

Inghirami, Marchese, 389. 

Innovations at Winchester, 92. 

Intentions, good, imprudence of reg- 
istering them, 156, 157. 

Intimates, my mother's, in youth and 
age, 490. 

Ireland, Whately's utterances on, 
142, 143; in 1841, 328; Grattan 
on, 503. 

Itchen water-meads, Winchester, 75, 

Ion, Sergeant Talfourd's, 497. 

Irish in America, Grattan on the, 
500. 

Italy, my mother's book on, 325,- 
takes to political thinking, 398. 

Jacobson, Mr., 148, 149. 
Jamaica, Bishop of, 49. 
James, G, P. R., Landor's friend, 

440. 
Jealousy, professional, at Florence, 

489. 
Jenne, Dr., 176-178, 204, 243, 246. 
Jenne, Mrs., 246. 
Jews at Vienna, 224. 
Johnson, Dr., of Magdalen, 137, 



Journey in West of England, 57; 

from Vienna to England, 239, 

240. 
Joy, Mr., of Boston, 502. 
Joyce's Inn, dinner at, 829. 
Judge Story, Grattan on, 503. 
Julians, visits to, 44. 

Kater, Captain, 253. 

Kensington Gardens, 6. 

Kenyon, Mr., 391 ; and Landor, 444 ; 
his poems, Landor on, 445 ; Lan- 
dor on, 444 ; and Miss Mitford, 
498. 

Kenyon, Mr. Edward, and Miss Mit- 
ford, 498 ; his munificence, 498. 

Keppel Street days, 2-4, 12, 13, 1 7- 
19,40; old, 491. 

Key of the birch cupboard and 
" Mother Mark," 53. 

Killeries, excursion to, 328. 

King's Head Inn, Dover, detention 
at, 240. 

Kingstown, landing at, 328. 

Kirkup, Seymour, 268-270; and Sig- 
nor Bezzi, 442. 

Kiss of peace, the vicar's, 65 

"La Beata," my novel, George Eliot 
on, 476 ; Lewes on, 477. 

Lablaclie in 1840, 314. 

" Lady " for wife, used by Landor, 
443. 

La Fayette, General, 106. 

Laffarge, Madame, 308. 

Lafontaine, M., 267, 268. 

Lamartine, 190; cited, 310. 

Lamb, Sir F., 230, 231. 

Lamenais, Abbe de, 194, 195. 

Landon, L. E., 163. 

Landor, Walter Savage, 438 ,• at 
Siena, 399 ; circumstances under 
which he left Engknd, 438 ; his 
character, 438 ; personal appear- 
ance, 439 ; last days at Florence, 
439 ; anecdote of, 439 ; his deaf- 
ness, 439 ; dropped his aspirates, 
440; threw his dinner service out 
of window, 440 ; his vivacity of 
manner, 440 ; his objection to 
scattering his photograph, 441 ; 
letters to Mr. Garrow, 442-447 ; 
offers to let his villa at Florence, 
443 ; his extravagant exaggera- 
tions, 444, 445 n. ; anger respecting 



534 



INDEX. 



Lieutenantcy of Monmouth, 446 ; 
abuses the Whigs, 446, 447 ; at a 
breakfast at Milraan's, 447 ; and 
Mary Mitford, 499. 

Land's End, the, 296. 

Landseer, Edwin. 355. 

Langdale, Little, Wordsworth's lines 
on, 285. 

Language, degradation of, 34, 35. 

Lanleff, Temple of, 315. 

Larochefoucauld, Duchesse de, 188 ; 

Lascia Passare extraordinary, 370, 

Laudanum and green tea, effects of, 
490. 

La Vernia, 421, 451 ; ride to, 460 ; 
forestieria^ etc., 461 ; night-lodg- 
ing at, 461. 

Law, idea of supremacy of, at Win- 
chester, 140. 

Lavard, visit to Dickens, 359 ; and 
G. P. Marsh, 449. 

Leaf, turning over a new, Grattan on, 
500. 

Leatherhead, sexton of, 155. 

" Leave out " at Winchester, 90. 

Lebanon, Mount, Shaking Quaker 
establishment, 121. 

Lectures, classical, Whately's useless 
to me, 136; logic, Whately's wit 
at, 139. 

Lembach, portrait painter, 229. 

" Lenten Journey," my, 321. 

Leo XIIL, 219. ' 

Leopoldine laws at Florence, 409, 

Le Roi, Madame, anecdote of, 314. 

Lesson-giving in London, 171, 172. 

Lessons in chapel, extraordinarv, 97, 
98. 

Letters, single and double, 38, 39 j 
mv first wife's in the Athenceum, 
508. 

Lewes, G. H., my first acquaintance 
with, 451 ; a delightful compan- 
ion, 452 ; his incessant care for 
his wife, 452-455 ; his anxiety 
about Mrs. Lewes's fatigue, 462 ; 
his fourth visit to Italy, 463 ; as a 
raconteur, 466 ; at the house of 
the American minister, 465, 466 ; 
his advice to me about my novel, 
466 ; happier than previously, 
468 ; last adieu to him and Mrs. 
Lewes, 470 ; his sayings of George 
Eliot's person and constitution, 
471; his literary influence on 



George Eliot, 472; his faith in 
her powers, 472 ; his insistence 
on her superiority to him, 473 ; 
his delight in talking of her, 473 ; 
letters from him and George 
Eliot, 474-487 ; letter criticising 
my novel " La Beata," 475, 476 ; 
his remarks on Mrs. Browning's 
death, 476 ; visits Malvern, 477 ; 
his criticism on my " Marietta," 
479; his ill - health, 480; Fort- 
nightly Review, his editing of, 481 ; 
at Tunbridge Wells, 481; his 
" History of Philosophy," 482 ; in 
the Black Forest, 482 ; at a pan- 
tomime, 482 ; on crossing to Cal- 
ais, 483 ; on my corresponding 
with a London paper, 484 ; death 
of his son, 485 ; no biography of, 
485 ; his special advantages in 
writing on philosophy, 486 ; pho- 
tograph of him, 487. 
Lewes, Mrs., excursion to Camaldoli, 
451 ; her cheerfulness under fa- 
tigue, 451, 452; her sensitiveness 
to all matteis of interest, 452, 455 ; 
passes the night in the cow-house, 
458; at La Vernia, 461, 462 ; her 
fourth visit to Italy, 463 ; her in- 
tellectual power, 463 ; considera- 
tion for others, 463 ; as a com- 
panion, 464, 465 ; her Catholic 
tolerance, 464 ; would have been 
an admirable confessor, 465 ; not 
happy, 465 ; subsequently more 
so, 465 ; her sense of humor, 466; 
my visit to her at Witley, 467 ; her 
growth, 467, 468 ; optimism in her 
case, 468; her articulation, 468;" 
her love for a drinking-song, 468; 
her improved health, 468; last 
adieu to her and Lewes, 470 ; her 
personal appearance, 470 ; her 
likeness to Savonarola, 471 ; to 
Dante, 471 ; her voice, 471 ; and 
mode of speaking, 471 ; her opin- 
ion of Lewes's scientific attain- 
ments, 472 ; Bohemianism in 
Lewes pleasant to her, 472 ; let- 
ters from her and Lewes, 474- 
487 ; questions concerning Flor- 
entine history, letter on, 474, 
475 ; her remarks on my novel 
" La Beata," 476 ; speaks of her 
interest in deathbeds, 477 ; her 



INDEX. 



535 



handwriting, 477 ; on letter-writ- 
ing, 478 ; her Saturday musical 
evenings, 478 ; her poor state of 
health, 480 ; at Venice, 480 ; dif- 
ficulties in composing, 481 ; in 
the Black Forest, 482 ; wishes to 
see Arezzo and Perugia, 482; at 
Naples, 483 ; as an antagonist, 
484 ; and ray second wife, 484 ; 
her affection for Lewes's son, 485 ; 
her wishes concerning her hus- 
band, 485 ; after her husband's 
death, 485 ; on her husband's 
photograph, 489. 

Lewes, Charles, 487. 

Liberalism, my mother's, 490. 

Librarian at Tubingen, 218. 

'* Life and Mind, Problems of," G. H. 
Lewes's book on, 485. 

Lilies, scarlet, American, 499. 

Lima, river, 372. 

Lincoln's Inn, 2, 4, 32, 33. 

Linguistic solecisms, modern, 35. 

Lipscomb, Rev. Mr., 49. 

Lira, Tuscan, 343. 

Liszt, 198, 199. 

Literary judgments of Paris in 1834, 
190-192. 

Literature, English, biographies in, 
485. 
ttle 
172. 

Liverpool and Manchester railroad, 
154, 155. 

Livery servant, 3. 

Livingstone, 57. 

" Loggia," Tuscan, picture of after- 
noon in a, 509. 

Lohnkutscher, German, 212. 

Lombard nobles, 475. 

Lombardy under the Austrians, 405. 

London, changes in, 20, 30, 31, 

London Quarterly on G. H. Lewes, 
485. 

Longfellow and Sir G. Musgrave, 
301 n. 

Longworth, Mr., 121, 122. 

Lorraine, ramble in, 323. 

Lottery, Italian, scheme of, 427. 

Louis Philippe, 183, 186, 191, 194; 
history of reign of, 307 ; his hob- 
by, 308 ; opens French Chambers, 
809, 312; his grief at death of 
Due d'Orleans, 312 ; anecdote of, 
313 ; his wealth, 318 ; his debts, 



318 ; his reign, character of, 
324. 

Louis XL, 194. 

Lowell, his " Biglow Papers," read 
by him, 470. 

Lowth, Dr., 96. 

L. S. D., origin of our, 343. 

Lucca Baths, 364; journey thither 
from Florence, 364; English 
Church at, 368 ; tragedy at, 372, 
373 ; La Lidustriosa, 409. 

Lucca, Duke of, 306 ; at the Baths, 
367 ; his Protestantizing tenden- 
cies, 367; his English chamber- 
lains, 371 ; opposed to duelling, 
372 ; by his chamberlain's dying- 
bed, 375. 

Lucca, Scientific Congress at, 383. 

Lucchesi, character of, 365. 

Lucerne, visit to the Garrows at, 383. 

" Luck of Edenhall," 300, 301. 

" Lung' Arno," at Florence, 406. 

Luscombe, Bishop, his preaching, 
316; anecdote of, 316, 317. 

"Lydia Languish" played by Ma- 
dame di Parcieu, 416. 

Lynraouth as it was, 61. 

Lynton sixty years ago, 61. 

Lyon, John, 48, 51, 54. 

Macaulay, Landor on, 447. 

Macbride, Dr., 147, 148. 

" Macchiavelli, Life of," Villari's, 418. 

"Macchie" in Italian landscape, 469. 

Mackintosh, Mrs., 202 ; Margaret, 
202, 203. 

Macleod, Col, at Penrith, 303. 

Macready, 39 ; and Mary Mitford, 
499 ; and G. H. Lewes, 474 ; plays 
*' Ion " for his benefit, 497. 

M'Queen, Col. Potter, 335. 

Madiai, the story of the, 348, 409. 

Magazines, writing in, Mary Mitford 
on, 490. 

Magdalen College, 33, 137. 

Magdalen Hall, 147 ; society at, 148 ; 
anecdotes of, 148. 

Magisterial duties, 47. 

Magnetism, animal, 253, 254; expe- 
riences of, with Baron Dupotet, 
253, 254 ; with Dr. Elliotson, 255- 
258; with Daniel Hume, 260-266; 

with Mrs. G , 266, 267 ; with 

Dr. WiUis, 267 ; with M. Lafon- 
taine, 267, 268; with Seymour 



536 



INDEX. 



Kirkup, 268, 269; with my wife 
and sister-in-law, 269 ; with Alex- 
is, 271, 272; with performer with 
slates and pencils, 272; perform- 
ances of Messrs. Maskelyne and 
Cooke, 270, 271 ; general impres- 
sion left on ray mind, 274. 

Mahomet, Landor on, 447. 

Mail coaches, 23, 24; racing the, 
150; from Canterbury to London, 
242. 

Malcontent!, Via dei, Florence, 337. 

Mahbran, 225. 

Malvern, Mr. and Mrs. Lewes's visit, 
478. 

Mancel,M., 210, 211. 

Manchester, marriages at, 155. 

Manciple and bishop, anecdote of, 
99. 

Manelli family at Florence, 475. 

Mannheim, 304. 

Manual for Confessors, 357. 

"Marietta," my novel, criticised by 
Lewes, 479. 

Mario, Alberto, 428. 

Mario, Jessie White, 428, 430. 

Marriage, my first, opposition to, 379 ; 
imprudence of, 379; performed 
in Florence, 389. 

Marri«ge service extraordinary, 155. 

Mars, Madame, in " Les Dehors 
Trompeurs," 314. 

Marsellaise, in 1840, 309. 

Marsh, G. P., 232 ; American minis- 
ter to Italy, 448; dean of the 
diplomatic body, 448 ; his work, 
" Man in Nature," 448 ; letter 
from him, 449 ; difficulty with the 
Italian ministry, 449, 450 ; his 
death, 450 ; and George Eliot, 465 ; 
Mrs. Marsh, 450 ; and George Eliot, 
465 ; at Rome, 467. 

Martineau, Miss, her American book, 
499. 

Maskelyne and Cooke, Messrs., 270, 
271. 

"Mason, George," Mary Mitford in- 
quires about, 495. 

Mason, Mr., 243, 245. 

Massaia, Cardinal, 219. 

Massy, Dawson, 446. 

Master of Foxhounds, Irish, 328. 

Mathias, Mr., 252. 

Matriculation, my, 132. 

Mattingley, near Heckfield, 13. 



Mazzinists, Col. Peard on, 426. 
Medical practice and whist, 489. 
" Medici, Catherine de. Girlhood of," 

my book on, 417. 
Medici, General, his departure from 

Genoa, 427. 
Mediterranean, the, 455. 
Meetkerke, Adolphus, 43, 44, 46 ; 

Mrs., 44, 45, 47 ; Mrs. Anne, 44. 
Melanie, Princess Metternich, 492; 

letter from, 492; exchange of 

portraits, 492. 
Melbourne, LoVd, his family, Landor 

on, 446. 
Melfort, Count, 203. 
Melmish, Miss Emma, 255, 256, 
Member of Congress, 503. 
" Memoires d'Outretombe," Ciiauteau- 

briand's, 188; readings from, 189. 
"Memories, Palace of," verses by my 

first wife, 512. 
Menage and Menagerie, 339. 
"Mercato in," Italian phrase, 475. 
Merimee, M., 315. 
Messenger, King's, 276. 
Metternich, and Bismarck contrasted, 

228, 229 ; personal appearance of, 

229, 230 ; his habit at dinner, 232 ; 
his account of his interviews with 
Napoleon, 233 ; his story of Fouche, 
234-236; Princess, 231 ; influence 
of, on my mother, 492 ; Princess, 
influence of, 492. 

Metz, 212. 

Mezzeria system in Tuscany, 404. 

Michael Angelo, his figure represent- 
ing the Apennine, 420. 

" Michael Armstrong," novel by my 
mother, 336. 

Middle Temple, 2. 

Middleton, Captain, 168. 

Mignaty, Signer, 479. 

Mignaty, Signora, 479. 

Mignet'M., 190, 319. 

Milan, " Untori," 47 ; Scientific Con- 
gress at, 383. 

Milk not used by Tuscans, 454. 

Mills, Rev. Mr., 50. 

Milman, 163-165; Landor break- 
fasts with, 447 ; Lander's criti- 
cism on, 447 ; quits incumbency 
at Reading, 497. 

Milman, Lady, 163. 

Milman, Sir Francis, 163. 

Milman, Sir William, 164. 



INDEX. 



537 



Milton, Henry, 151. 

Milton, Mrs.," 160. 

Milton, Rev. William, 9, 13, 44. 

Minerva Hotel, Rome, Leweses at, 
483. 

Misericordia, the Florentine, 412 ; 
origin of, 412; dress of, 413; 
members of, 413 ; proceedings of, 
413; anecdotes of, 413,414; Ro- 
man, 414. 

Mitford, Mary, 494 ; her personal ap- 
pearance, 494 ; letters from, 495- 
499 ; her handwriting, 494 ; an 
aristocratic Whig, 495 ; remarks 
on Owen of Lanark, 495 ; and 
Captain Polhill, 495 ; her opera, 
495, 496 ; on writing in maga- 
zines, 496 ; her hopes for her 
tragedy, 496 ; her hatred of puff- 
ery, 496 ; anxious to go to London 
for the performance of Talfourd's 
"Ion," 49*7; necessity for travelling 
with a maid, 497 ; her father, 497; 
her cousins, 497 ; writes a novel 
for Saunders & Ottley, 497; her 
belief in sympathies, 498; opin- 
ions on Austria, 498 ; admiration 
for Gothic architecture, 498 ; pur- 
poses a novel on Reading Abbey, 
498 ; her " Country Stories," 498 ; 
her admiration for Miss Barrett, 
498 ; her garden, 499 ; sends wild 
flowers to the Sedgwicks, 499 ; 
Carey, translator of Dante, visits 
her, 499; her "gush," 499. 

Modena, frontier line between it and 
Lucca, 372 ; political feeling at, 
398 ; under the Este dukes, 405. 

" Modern Antiques " in " Our Vil- 
lage," 499. 

Mohl, Jules, at Madame Recamier's, 
317; anecdote told by, 318; his 
great work, 318 ; character of, 318, 
319; Madam, life of, by K.O'Meara, 
319; note from, 319. 

Mohl, M., 198. 

Moli^re, 160. 

Monasteries, sites of, 456. 

Monday Popular Concerts, at the, 471. 

Monmouth, Deputy Lieutenantcv of, 
446. 

Montalembert, remarks of Dickens 
on, 358. 

Mont Cenis, crossing in February, 
325. 
23* 



Monthlies, writing in, Mary Mitford 
on, 496. 

Montmorenci, picnic at, 199, 200. 

Moore, Thomas, Landor on, 447. 

Moses, Landor on, 447. 

Mountain, Mrs., 25. 

Mountains, last look on the, 505. 

Mouse-digging at Winchester, 76. 

Movement of mind towards conserv- 
atism, 494, 

Mowatt, Mrs., 416. 

Mozzi family at Florence, 475. 

Mudie, Mr., 159. 

Mulgrave, Lady, 446. 

Municipalities, rivalry between, 385. 

Municipality, Florentine, place a tab- 
let to the memory of my first wife, 
516. 

Murch, Captain, 176, 177. 

Murder at Florence, anecdote of a, 
407. 

Murder, singular method of, 467. 

Murray, John, of Albemarle Street, 
289. 

Museum, British, George Eliot read- 
ing at, 479. 

Museum, National, at Pesth, 434. 

Musgrave, Sir George, 298 ; lady, 299 ; 
and the Holy Well, 300 ; and Long- 
fellow, 301 V ; walks with, 302. 

Musgraves of Edenhall, 298. 

Music never taught, 104. 

Mutton at Winchester, 71, 72; loin 
of, anecdote of a, 151 ; no more 
good, 303. 

Naples, pocket-picking, at, 10 ; king 
of, 13 ; Scientific Congress at, 384 ; 
under the Bourbons, 405 ; com- 
pared with Torquay, 443 ; the 
Leweses at, 483 ; George Eliot on 
quarters at, 483. 

Napoleon, 224, 236. 

Napoleon, Louis, Dickens on, 360 ; 
his Italian poHcy, Mrs. Browning 
on, 397 ; W. S. Landor writes on, 
399. 

Narrow escape, my, in tvphus fever, 
55. 

Nashoba, Miss Wright's property at, 
107. 

Nemours, Due de, anecdote of, 307 ; 
his grief for his brother's death, 
312. 

Nerli family at Florence, 475. 



538 



INDEX. 



" Netto di specchio," query of George 
Eliot respecting the phrase, 474. 

Neuilly, body of Due d'Orleans Iving 
at, 311. 

New College, 13; election to, from 
Winchester, 67 ; privilege now 
abandoned, 133. 

New York, first impressions of, 115. 

Niagara, 129, 130, 503. 

Niccolini, the poet, my first wife's 
translations from, 507 ; in his old 
age, 507 ; a disappointed man, 
507. 

Nicholson, Dr., of Penrith, 301-303 ; 
walks with, 302. 

Nicholson, Dr.Wra., of Penrith, 341, 
342. 

Nieufort, gig monstre, 169. 

Nihilist, opinions of a, 433 ; appear- 
ance of a, 433. 

Noailles, Duchesse de, 188. 

Noble, name of Landor's grandmoth- 
er, 443. 

**No innovation," 91. 

Normandy, tour in, 209. 

North American Revieio^ Grattan 
writes in, 501. 

Northampton, Lord, 447. 

" Northern Cobbler," the, read by 
Tennyson, 469. 

Northernhay, at Exeter, 330. 

Northwick, Lord, 43. 53, 63, 105, 163. 

Nott, Dr., 10, 11,160,230. 

Novels, my, 419, 420. 

Novel -writing, Mary Mitford on, 496. 

Nunziatina, Via, in Florence, 439. 

Nurse and child, picture of, 610. 

Nymzevitch, ex-chancellor of Poland, 
anecdote of, 316. 

Oastler, Mr., 282, 283. 

Oath, College, at Winchester, 90. 

Obedience, anecdote of, 42. 

Oberland, the, 482. 

O'Connell's health drank at Boston, 

503. 
Octroi of London, 322. 
Odium, theatricals at, 160. 
Officer, Austrian and Tuscan mob, 

anecdote of, 406, 407. 
Officers of prefects at Winchester, 

72-75, 87. 
Ogle, Dean, 84. 

Ogles, cousins of Mary Mitford, 497. 
Okey, two sisters, 257-260. 



Old school, practitioner of the, 489. 
Olney, Cowper's residence at, Mary 

Mitford on, 499. 
Olympus for forgotten authors, 478. 
O'Meara, Miss K., on Julius Mohl, 

319. 
Opera, Mary Mitford's, 495. 
Optimism in George Eliot, 468. 
Oratorio, Dr. Nott at an, 160. 
Ordinations by Bishop of Hereford, 

91. 
Oriel College, Whately popular at, 

136. 
Orleans, Duke of, 311 ; his death, 311 ; 

grief of royal family for, 312 ; an- 
ecdote of, 313. 
Orley Farm, my brother Anthony's, 

163. 
Ostend, 304; society at, anecdotes 

of, 176; pleasant days at, 202; 

tragedy at, 202, 203 ; society at, 

203. 
Osteria, near Lucca Baths, scene at, 

375. 
" Our Village," last volume of, 495. 
Ovington, 12. 
Owen, Dale, 107. 
Owen, of Lanark, 107, 495. 
Oxford road, 22 ; street, 22. 
Oxford, my life at, 150, 152 ; general 

habits at, 150. 
Oyster-soup, anecdote, 209. 

Packing and Sitz baths, 478. 
Paddington, Bishop Luscorabe at, 

316. 
"Padre forestieraio " at Caraaldoli, 

456, 467 ; plans for his holiday, 

458. 
Padua "la dotta," 409. 
Paige, Mr., of Boston, Grattan on, 

502. 
Paige, Mrs., 502, 503. 
" Palace of Memories," verses by my 

first wife, 512. 
Pan, God, Mrs. Browning's poem on, 

394; morality of, 396. 
Pantomime, 15; Lewes at a, 482. 
Papal Legion, the, 449. 
Parceqiie and Quoique Bourbon, 184. 
Parcieu, Madame de, as " Lydia Lan- 
guish," 416. 
Paris, first visit to, 182 ; changes in, 

182, 183; second visit to, 304; 

residence at, 323 ; lodgings, cost 



INDEX. 



539 



of, 324; society in 1840, 324; as 
a permanent residence, 331. 

" Paris and the Parisians," my moth- 
er's book, Mary Mitford on, 497. 

Parish church sixty years ago, 45, 
46. 

Parma, Duke of, his death, 367. 

Parma, political feeling at, 398. 

Parodies and jibes ridiculing the Re- 
publicans, 185. 

Partington, Miss, 13. 

Partington, Mr., my uncle, 303. 

Pasolini, Count and Countess, 467. 

Passenger ship, burning of, 144. 

Passengers in steerage, 110. 

Passerini, Palazzo, at Florence, 332. 

Patrick's Day, Saint, Grattan on, 
503. 

" Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar," 
my book on, 417. 

Paved roads in France, 181. 

Paynter, Fred, 446. 

Peard, Colonel, 425 ; letters from, 
426, 427. 

Pedestrianism, my, 151, 152, 167 ; in 
Wales, 156. 

Pelago in the Val d'Arno, 453 ; An- 
tonio da, 453, 454, 460. 

Penini, Browning's son, at Siena, 
399 ; anecdote of, 399. 

Penna de la Vernia, 460 ; origin of 
word, 460 ; appearance of, 460. 

Penrith, at, 298-300; my sister's 
confinement at, 325 ; house at, 
327. 

Pepe, General Fiorestano, 12. 

Pepe, General Guglielmo, 12; his 
marriage, 315 ; my mother's inti- 
macy with, 491. 

Pergola Theatre at Florence, prices 
at, 344; habits and manners at, 
344 ; crush room at, 344. 

Persecution of heretics, 278. 

Persiani in 1840, 314, 315._ 

Personal appearance, my, in youth, 

15, 16. 
Personal superintendence, little at 

Winchester, 84, 85. 
Perugia, George Eliot wishes to see, 

482; at, 483. 
Pesth, museum at, 434 ; ladies of, 
435 ; university, 436 ; museum, 
437. 
"Philosophy, History of," Lewes's, 
482. 



Philpotts, Bishop of Exeter, Landor 
on, 444 ; anecdote of, 444. 

Phlebotomy versus port wine, 489 ; 
versics whist, 489. 

Photograph, Landor's, 441. 

Physician, Princess Metternich's, 
493. 

Piastre, Landor fined one, 439. 

Piazza del Duomo at Florence, cafe 
in, 407. 

Piazza dell' Independenza at Flor- 
ence, 421. 

" Piazza in," Italian phrase, 475. 

Picardy, ramble in, 323. 

Piccadilly, 4, 5. 

Picnic at Montmorenci, 199, 200. 

Picnics at Florence, 420. 

Pidding, confectioner, 2. • 

Pigott, Edward, and George Eliot, 
480. 

Pindar, Peter, 27. 

Pinner, Lady Milman's house at, 
163. 

Pisa, Congress at, 383 ; region be- 
tween it and the sea, 455. 

Pistoja, mountains in the, 508. 

Pitti Palace, presentations, anecdote 
of, 339 ; versus Vatican, 340 ; balls 
at, 345 ; suppers at, 345 ; grand 
duke at, 347 ; duchess at, 347 ; 
I dowager duchess at, 347 ; the, at 
Florence, 421. 

Pittsburgh, squalor of, 115. 
I Pius IX., anecdote of, 313, 314 ; line 
on, 514. 

I Place Vendome, 390. 

Plantation Bitters, G. H. Lewes rec- 
ommends, 483. 

Pleintling, on the Danube, adventure 
at, 216, 217. 

Plinlimmon pedestrianism, 156. 

Plot's "Oxfordshire," 152. 

Plowden, Mr., at the baths of Lucca, 
371 ; his duel with the duke's 
chamberlain, 372, 373. 

Plunkett, Mr., Minister at Florence, 

389. 
Plymouth, no tobacconist in, 153. 
Poem by Theodosia TroUope, 509- 

513. 
Pointer, French, anecdote of, 335. 

' Polhill, Captain, and Mary Mitford, 

I 495. 

! Police at Florence under the grand 

I duke, 407. 



540 



INDEX. 



Political opinion, Parisian, in 1840, 
309. 

Politics, al fresco, 183; at Paris in 
1834, 183, 184; street, in Paris, 
308 ; an affair of the heart, 491. 

Ponte at baths of Lucca, 364. 

Ponte Vecchio at Florence in dan- 
ger, 342 ; the, 406. 

Pontifical government, ray first wife's 
hatred of, 514. 

Populace, Florentine, anecdote of, 
406, 407 ; violence of, 198,408. 

"Por' Santa Maria," in Florence,406. 

Port wine versus phlebotomy, 489. 

Portugal, destruction of monasteries 
in, Mary Mitford on, 498. 

Postman, two-penny, 38. 

Postmark, singular error in, 481. 

Post-office, at the, 22. 

Potatoes, cost of, 323. 

Poulter, Rev. E., 104. 

Power, Miss, Lady Blessington's 
niece, 513. 

Power, lost in the President, 500. 

Powers, Hiram, 122, 123. 

Practitioner, country, sixty years ago, 
55. 

Prato Vecchio, town in the Apen- 
nines, 454 ; osteria at, 445. 

Pratolino, picnics at, 420 ; Medician 
villa, 420 ; view from, 420. 

Prayer, family, sixty years ago, 45. 

Prefects, authority of, at Winchester, 
BY. 

Prefects' table at Winchester, 73. 

Premature burial, fear of, 518. 

Prescott, the historian, Grattan on, 
503. 

" President," the, a fatal title, 500. 

Prester John, 7. 

Pretender, Young, Mary Mitford's 
story of the, 498. 

Price, Dr., 124. 

Price, Mrs., 124, 125. 

Priest, rescuing the, 329 ; burial of, 
in Florence Cathedral, 410. 

Priory, the, Mrs. Lewes at, 485. 

" Problems of Life and Mind," G. H. 
Lewes's book on, 485. 

Proby, Mrs., as " Mrs. Malaprop," 
416. 

Proctor, Mr., his poetry, Mary Mit- 
ford on, 498. 
Professional etiquette sixty years 
ago, 88. 



Proletaire, French, 490. 

Promise, my, to my mother, 518. 

Pronunciation, changes in, 34. 

Propaganda, Roman, visit at, 219. 

Protestant cemetery at Floience, 
517,519. 

Provence, Rue de, at Paris, 182. 

Provincialism, affected, 299 ; Tuscan, 
418,419. 

" Psychology, Study of," Lewes's 
book on the, 485. 

Puffery, Marv Mitford on, 496. 

Pulszky, Franz, 432; his talk, 432, 
433; his villa at Florence, 433; 
letters from, 433-436 ; our tobacco 
parliament, 433 ; and Deak, 434 ; 
and Baron Eotvos, 434 ; on Hun- 
garian politics, 485 ; his children, 
435; at Vienna, 435; his multi- 
farious occupations, 436 ; visit to, 
at Pesth, 437. 

Pulszky, Madame, 433. 

Punning, Grattan abandons, 503, 

Purley, Diversions of, 152. 

" Puseyite," my sister a, 388. 

Quadruple Alliance, the, 308. 
Quakers, Shaking, visit to, 118-121. 
Quarterly, London, on G. H. Lewes, 

485. 
Quattro Fontane, Via della, 387. 
Qnincy Adams, John, 503. 
Queen of the Adriatic, monograph 

on, 384. 
Queen's health not drunk at Boston, 

503. 
Queen, British, the, steamship, 500. 
Queen of the Baths, Lucca, 368. 
Queen, the, should be pope, says 

Landor, 447. 
Quicksilver mail, 23, 25. 
Quirinal, anecdote of dinner at, 232. 
Quotations, Landor on, 442. 

Rachel, Mademoiselle, in "Cinna," 
314 ; her specialties, 314 ; in " Marie 
Stuart," 314 ; in " Adrienne," 314, 

Raglan Castle, 59, 60. 

Railway, new, Liverpool to Man- 
chester, 154. 

Railways, social effect of, 288 ; the 
Leweses wish to avoid, 482. 

Ratcliffe, Mrs., 60, 277; anecdote 
of, 4. 

Rations at Winchester, 71. 



INDEX. 



541 



Ratisbon, 213, 214. 

Ratisbonne, M., his conversion, 312. 

Ravenna, scene of a novel of mine, 

467. 
Reading Abbey, Mary Mitford's proj- 
ect concerning, 498. 
Reading, early lessons, 16. 
Reading, visits to, 494. 
Re^amier, Madame, 188, 189, 196, 
197; talk in her salon, 317; and 
Lady Bulwer, 335. 
Red Lion Square, 20. 
Refinement, its connection with 

wealth, Mary Mitford on, 495. 
Refugees, political, in Florence, 340. 
Regicides, would-be, 490. 
Religion in France in 1840, 317. 
ReUgious education, 9; at Win- 
chester, 95, 96 ; indifferentism at 
Cincinnati, 124. 
Remedy ring at Winchester, 77. 
Rennell, Dean, 91,99, 100. 
Repartee, Grattan takes to, 503. 
Republicans, Parisian, in 1834, 184, 

185; feared, 185. 
Rettich, Madame, 226. 
Return to England from America, 130. 
Review, Fortnightly, 481 ; Korth 
American^ Grattan writes in, 501. 
Revolution at Florence, 350, 421 ; 
entirely bloodless, 422 ; orders to 
fire on the city in the, 423. 
Rialto, on the, 334. 
Richelieu, Due de, anecdote of, 316. 
Richie, Mrs., 417. 
Ricorboli, my villa at, 463, 465, 467, 

484. 
Ridding, Mr., 88, 89. 
" Rienzi," Mary Mitford's, 498. 
Ristori, Madame, in " Mirra," 314. 
" Rivals, The," acted at Florence,416. 
Riviera, the. Whitebait on, 294. 
" Rizpah," read by Tennyson, 469. 
" Road to Ruin, The," Arthur Van- 

sittart in, 415. 
"Robausata," 370. 
Robbins, English clergyman at Flor- 
ence, 389. 
Robbins, Mr., 104. 

Roberts, Captain of the Preside?it, 500. 
Rocks, Valley of, 61. 
Rod, Mark Drury and the, 52, 53 ; 

the Winchester, 79. 
Rogers, Landor on, 442; at Milman's 
breakfast, 447. 



Hole, Liberal, profession of, 490. 
Romagna under the pope, 405. 
Romagnoli, the, 398. 
Rome as a residence, 331 ; takes no 

part in scientific congresses, 385 ; 

winter in, 387. 
Rome " la Eterna," 409. 
" Romola," George Eliot's, faults of, 

462 ; merits of, 463. 
Romuald, Saint, 456. 
Rossi family at Florence, 475. 
Rotis volventibus, 14. 
Rousseau, 396, 

Route through Germany, 219. 
Rubini in 1840, 314. 
Rule and example, 466. 
Russell Square, 2. 
Russells, cousins of Mary Mitford, 

497. 
Rymer, Mr., 261. 

Sabbath observance, Whately on, 

139. 
Saffron Hill, expedition to, 7, 8. 
Sagro Eremo, the, at Camaldoli, 458 ; 

ride up to, 458; rule there, 459; 

inmates of, 460. 
Saint Catherine's Hill, Winchester, 

74, 75. 
Saint Francis, sisters of the Order, 

461. 
Saint James's Park, 6. 
Saint Martin's-le-Grand, 22, 
Saint Martin's Lane, pilgrimage to, 

50. 
Saint Patrick's Day, Grattan on, 503. 
Saint Stephen's at Vienna, catacombs 

under, 237. 
Saiiita Maria Maggiore in Rome, 387. 
Sainte-Beuve, cited, 318. 
Salisbury, 14. 
Sams or Sands ? Miss Mitford asks, 

495. 
Sanctuaries, Tuscan, 421, 
San Carlo Theatre at Naples, George 

Eliot at, 483. 
San Gallo gate at Florence, 423. 
San Niccolo gate at Florence, 463. 
Sand, Georges, 190, 194, 195, 
Sanscrit dictionarv, if wanted, 514. 
Sardine fishing, 293. 
Saturday Review, George Eliot on, 

477, 479. 
Saunders & Ottley publish novel for 

Mary Mitford, 497. 



.42 



INDEX. 



Saunders, butler at Pinner, 164. 

Savonarola, in George Eliot's " Ro- 
mola," 463 ; likeness of George 
Eliot to, 471. 

Savoy, tour in, 332. 

Saws, Tuscan, for children, 511. 

Sayers, the pugilist, 34*7. 

Schiller, 21Y. 

School, public, what constitutes a, 
51. 

Schools versus colleges, Whately on, 
139. 

Schwab, Gustav, 218. 

Sciatica, attack of, 486. 

Scientific congresses, Italian, 383. 

Scott, Sir W., 60, 154. 

Scourging, practice and method of, 
at Winchester, 80, 81. 

Scrivelsby Manor, 346. 

Seal, old, Landor loses his, 443. 

Sedgwick, Miss, Mary Mitford on, 
495 , Theodore, asks for English 
wild flowers, 499. 

Self-knowledge, disadvantages of, 
125. 

Segni, the historian, 418. 

Seniority in college at Winchester, 
86. 

Serchio, river, 372 ; upper valley of, 
372. 

Sermon by Bishop of London, 152. 

Sermons at the cathedi-al, Winches- 
ter, 99, 100. 

Servite monastery on the Apen- 
nines, 420. 

Sestri di Ponente, fishery at, 293, 
294 ; whitebait at, 294. 

Severn, banks of, visited, 156. 

Sevestre, Lady, 374 ; Sir Thomas, 
374. 

Seville, anecdote of scene at, 144, 
145. 

Shaftesbury, Lord, 279, 281. 

Shakespeare, 154. 

Shakespeare's superstition, Mary 
Mitford on, 498. 

Shaking Quakers, visit to, 118-121. 

Shedden, Mr., 444. 

Shinner, Elizabeth, her death, 517. 

Shopkeepers, Parisian, 186. 

Shops, non-advertising, obsolete, 32. 

Shuttleworth, Warden of New Col- 
lege, antagonism with Whately, 
137-139; his wit, 138, 165. 

Shyness, my, 124, 125. 



Sicily and South Italy, Col. Peard 

on, 426 ; departure of volunteers 

for, 427. 
Siddons, Mrs., 17. 

Siena, Mrs. Browning at, 399 ; al- 
ways Conservative, 405. 
Simon, St., 1. 
Singlestick practice with Anthony, 

156. 
" Siren, A," my novel, 466 ; advice 

of Lewes concerning, 466. 
Skerret, Miss Henrietta, 252, 253. 
Skerret, Miss Maryanne, 252, 253. 
Skerret, Mrs., 252. 
Skinner, Miss, 131. 
Skinner, Rev. Mr , 45, 46. 
Skinner, Rev. Mr., of Bath, 130. 
Slang, modern, 35 ; progress of, 36; 

when vulgar, 36 ; and why, 37 ; 

humiliation in the use of it, 37. 
Sledge-journey from Dover, 240. 
Sledges on Mont Cenis, 326. 
Sloane, Mr., at Florence, 337 ; and 

grand duke, 338 ; his Friday din- 
ners, 338. 
Smith, Sydney, 278 ; his manner in 

the pulpit, 279. 
Smithett, Captain, 171, 176, 203. 
Snobbishness, absence of, among the 

Viennese, 222; anecdote on this 

subject, 222. 
Sobriety, my, 150. 
Somerset, Duke of, 60. 
Sophie, Austrian archduchess, 493 ; 
Sorrows, two greatest of my life, 

488. 
Soult, English frenzy about, 307 ; at 

the Chamber of Deputies, 316. 
Southampton, Landor goes to, 442. 
Southey, Landor on his marriage, 

442 ; Landor on, 445. 
Spain, destruction of monasteries, 

Mary Mitford on, 498. 
"Specchio, netto di," query of George 

Eliot concerning, 474. 
Speedyman at Winchester, 69, 70, 

101. 
Spiting Gabell at Winchester, 89. 
Squire, country, sixty years ago, 44. 
Squiress sixty years ago, 44, 45. 
Stage-coaches, plans for improving, 

13, 14. 
Standing to write, 519. 
Stanley, Ed., Landor on, 447. 
Stanton, near Monmouth, 16. 



INDEX. 



543 



State prisons in Austria, 498. 
Steerage passage across the Atlantic, 

109. 
Sterne quoted, 320, 
Stephens, Mr., preacher, 282 ; 
Stewart, Miss Rosa, 324. 
Stisted, Mrs., 368 ; was Queen of the 

Baths, 368 ; her harp-playing, 368; 

369 ; brings her husband's body 

from Rome, 369 ; Colonel, 368, 369; 

his death, 369 ; and burial, 370. 
Store Street, 2. 
Storm at Sea, 111. 
"Stornelli," Tuscan, 401; ray first 

wife's translations from, 508. 
Story, Judge, Grattan on, 503. 
Story, the Misses, at Penrith, 304; 

Charlotte, 304. 
Strasbourg, 212. 
Stuttgardt, 212. 

Sugaring jam tart, Lewes on, 480. 
Sultana, my first wife's grandmother, 

377, 506. 
Sunshine, George Eliot's, in London, 

478, 479. 
Superannuation at Winchester, 101. 
Superstitution, local, 300. 
Suppers at the Pitti Palace, 345. 
Supreme Court, American, Judge 

Story of the, 503. 
Surrey, George Eliot's home in, 465, 

485. 
Swedenborgianism, 302. 
Switzerland, Baden in, cured my 

sciatica, 486 ; travel in, 505. 
Symonds, Dr., 246. 
Sympathies, Mary Mitford's belief 

in, 498. 
Systematic law, force of, at Win- 
chester, 85. 
Szecseny, in Hungary, election for, 

436. 

Tablet, monumental, to my first wife, 

516. 
Tabula legum at Winchester, 79. 
Taffy, Lady Bulwer's dog, 333. 
Talfourd, Sergeant, Mary Mitford's 

friend, 496 ; his *' Ion," 497 ; 

franks Mary Mitford's letters, 497. 
Tamburini in 1840,314. 
Taylor, Jeremy, 278. 
Tea-things at Winchester, 70. 
Telegraph, Exeter coach, 25. 
Telesio, works of, 478. 



Temple Bar, 33. 

Temple, Sir William, 230. 

Temple, the, 32. 

Tennyson, visit to, 468 ; his reading, 
469. 

Teste, at the Chamber, 316. 

" Tester inferos," 454. 

Thackeray, Rev. Mr., 207. 

Thackeray, W. M., 200, 249 ; his dic- 
tum about humor, 466. 

Thames Embankment, 32. 

Theatre, visit to, to hear Siddons, 17. 

Theatres, sixty years ago, 39 ; re- 
forms in, 39 ; in London and 
abroad, G. H. Lewes on, 482. 

Theatricals, at Cincinnati, 126; pri- 
vate, at Florence, 415. 

Theresa, Saint, 256. 

Thibeaudeau, President, 316. 

Thiers, Ad., 190, 195, 196. 

Thiers, M., 308, 312; anecdote of, 
308; flatters the masses, 308; 
and Lady Bulwer, 335. 

Thomason, Sir Edward, 177. 

Thorn, Colonel, 310 w. 

''Three Clerks, The," my brother's 
novel, Mrs. Browning on, 402. 

Three Mile Cross, Miss Mitford's res- 
idence, 495. 

" Three Peers, The," by Lady S , 

Lady Bulwer on, 335. 

Tiber, river, 454. 

Tilley, Sir John, 208 ; married to my 
sister, 278, 285, 298. 

Times, the, on Italian politics, 398. 

Tintern Abbey, 60. 

Tito, in George Eliot's "Romola," 
merit of, 463. 

Tomkisson, Mr., 169. 

Torquay, compared with Naples, 443 ; 
Landor at, 442. 

Torreborre's barge, 201. 

Torrens, Mr., as " Sir Lucius O'Trig- 
ger," 416. 

Tory, process of becoming a, 491 ; 
Mary Mitford becomes a, 495. 

Tottenham Court Road, 2. 

Tours, in France, 381. 

Townsend, C. H., 355. 

Traditions of Landor in Florence, 
438, 439. 

Traffic between Dover and Canter- 
bury stopped, 240. 

Trapbois, Miss, 33. 

Travel in West of England, my fa- 



544 



INDEX. 



ther's mode of, 57, 58 ; books of, 
287, 321. 

Treguier in Brittany, 295. 

Trenton Falls, visit to, 129. 

Trewhella, Mr., 517. 

Trollope, Anthony, ray younger broth- 
er, 15, 166-168, 172, 179, 204; 
his "Autobiography," 158; at the 
post-office, 178; in Ireland, 178, 
179; in South America, 179; his 
judgment of me, 248 ; work a ne- 
cessity to him, 249 ; his industry, 
249 ; his illness, 257 ; in Ireland, 
827, 329 ; walk at the Killeries, 328 ; 
his standing for Beverley, Dickens 
on, 362 ; his criticism on Mrs. 
Browning, 394, 395 ; his " Three 
Clerks," Mrs. Browning on, 402 ; 
dines with G. H. Lewes, 476 ; with 
Carlyle, 476 ; comes to see me at 
Baden, 486 ; his letter to my wife, 
486 ; his autobiography, a passage 
in, 490 ; his mistaken judgment 
of my mother, 490-494. 

Trollope, Beatrice, my daughter, 
poem on, by her mother, 509- 
512 ; her mother's worship of, 
514; early discipline of, 516. 

Trollope, Cecilia, my sister, 169, 208, 
211 ; winters in Rome, 387. 

Trollope, Emily, my vounger sister, 
169, 173, 207. 

Trollope, Frances, my mother, 41, 42, 
58 ; journey from Exeter with, 26 ; 
at Cincinnati, 122, 123 ; her letters 
to my father before marriage, 158 ; 
her book on America, 160; its 
truthfulness, 161 ; its faults, 162 ; 
at Harrow Weald, 162; effects of 
her success, 167 ; at Bruges, 169 ; 
her terrible time there, 173-175; 
her estimate of Chateaubriand, 
189 ; her " Paris and the Paris- 
ians," 189; her wonderful recu- 
perative faculty, 207 ; her indus- 
try, 208 ; her account of Danube 
boat, 213, 214 ; consultations with 
me, 247 ; her illness, 250 ; set- 
tles in York Street, 250 ; win- 
ters in Rome, 387 ; as " Mrs. 
Malaprop," 416 ; serious illness 
of, was wrongly treated, 489 ; 
was my inseparable companion, 
488 ; her intense power of enjoy- 
ment, 489 ; her last days, 490, 



518; my brother Anthony's mis- 
taken judgment of, 490, 491, 494 ; 
portrait of, for Princess Metter- 
nich, 492 ; attacked by erysip- 
elas, 493 ; her death, 518 ; my 
promise to her, the keeping of, 
518. 

Trollope, General Sir Charles, at Ven- 
ice, 386 ; his membership of the 
Congress at Venice, 386. 

Trollope, Henrv, my eldest brother, 
15, 55, 107,' 116, 128, 173; his 
illness, 173,-175; my last parting 
with him, 173. 

Trollope, Rev. Anthony, my grand- 
father, 44. 

Trollope, Theodosia, my first wife, 
her death, 488, 505 ; her intellect- 
ual and moral qualities, 506 ; in- 
fluence of race on, 506 ; Mrs. 
Browning on her multiform facul- 
ty, 506 ; her musical talent, 507 ; 
her talent for language, 507 ; 
poems by, 509-512; her land- 
scape painting, 513; her opinions, 
514; her hatred of the pontifical 
government, 514; her social pref- 
erences, 514; her rule of life, 515; 
as a daughter-in-law, 515. 

Trollope, Thomas Anthony, my fa- 
ther, 2-4, 9, 14, 40-43, 47, 48, 53, 
56, 58, 61, 105, 109, 117, 128, 129, 
132, 133; at the wliist table, 40; 
his mode of teaching, 41 ; his ex- 
pectations disappointed, 47 ; his 
dispute with Whately, 146 ; no 
fortune-hunter, 159 ; his failures, 
167; at Bruges, 169; consulta- 
tions with French physicians, 182 ; 
his declining health, 204 ; his 
death, 204 ; his unhappy life, 204 ; 
his peculiar temperament, 205 ; his 
New College friends, 205 ; his "Ec- 
clesiastical Dictionary," 206 ; his 
great industry, 206. 

Trooper, Austrian, falls in streets of 
Florence, 406, 407. 

Troops, Tuscan, and the Revolution, 
422. 

Tub, prefect of, at Winchester, 72- 
74. 

Tiibingen, adventure at, 218, 219. 

Tuckerman, Mr., American writer, 
449. 

Tuileries, ball, anecdote, 186; bal 



INDEX. 



545 



monstre at, 310; suspected con- 
spiracy at, 310. 

Tuubridge Wells, G, H. Lewes at, 
481. 

Tunding at Winchester, 78, 19. 

Tupto, Warden's nickname, 91, 

Turbot, mutilated, 203. 

Turrite Cava, gorge of, 313, 314. 

Tuscan cities, wedding trip among, 
389 ; Stornelli, my first wife's 
translations from, 508. 

Tuscans not progressive, 404. 

Tuscany and Papal States, 341 ; con- 
dition of, in 1840, 348; Duke of, 
his justice, 3*75 ; grand-ducal, dis- 
hked at the Vatican, 409. 

Tutor and pupil at Winchester, 85, 
86. 

Twistleton family, 49. 

Tyburn turnpike, 22 ; toll-man at, 22. 

Typhus fever, I am attacked by, 55. 

Tyrol, ramble in, 325. 

Udolpho, Mysteries of, and Raglan 

Castle, 59.' 
Uhland, 218. 

Upper Arno, the valley of the, 462. 
Upton Pynes, 27. 

Yacancies at New College, 69. 

Vallombrosa, 421, 450, 453. 

Van Buren politics, Grattan on, 503. 

Vansittart, Arthur, 415. 

Varchi, the historian, 418, 474. 

Varying at Winchester, 83. 

Vatican, Dickens on the, 359. 

Vauxhall, excursion to, 166. 

Vein, opening of a, 518. 

" Venetian Ambassadors, Reports 
of," 405. 

Venetian glass and child, 510. 

Venice as a residence, 331 ; autumn 
at, 383 ; Scientific Congress at, 
383 ; magnificent reception of the 
Congress, 384, 385 ; under the 
Austrians, 405 ; George Eliot at, 
480. 

Verey's in Regent Street, Dickens at, 
355 ; Dickens' " God-speed " din- 
ner at, 361, 

Verses, nonsense, 4. 

Via Nazionale in Rome, 387. 

Vice-principal's examination, curious 
coincidence, 149. 

Victor Emanuel, 232. 



Victor Hugo, anecdote of his histor- 
ical ignorance, 194. 

Vienna, journey to, planned, 211; 
arrival at, 220 ; custom-house ad- 
venture at, 220 ; changes in, 220, 
221; from, to England, 239, 240; 
exhibition, 436; Mr. E. Ken3'on at, 
498. 

Viennese society, 221 ; exclusiveness 
of, 221 ; habits of, 222-224 ; loyal 
feeling of, anecdote of, 224, 225. 

Villa, the, at Lucca Baths, 365. 

Villafranca, 398. 

" Village, Our," last volume of, 495. 

Villages on hills aroimd Baths of 
Lucca, 365 ; mode of keeping time 
at, 366. 

Villani, the historian, 418, 474. 

Villari, Professor Pasquale, 418; 
Linda, 418. 

" Villino TroUope," at Florence, 517 ; 
my study in the, 520. 

Vincent, Sir Francis, at Florence, 
416. 

Vinerian fellowship, 3. 

Visconti, Mademoiselle, 315. 

Visits, two important, 376. 

Vol-au-vent, true pronunciation of, 
304. 

Voltera, copper mines near, and Mr. 
Sloane, 337, 517. 

Volunteers, Colonel Peard on, 426. 

Voyage down the Danube, 215-217. 

" Vulgus " at Winchester, 82. 

Wackerbarth, Mr., High Church 
curate, 278. 

Wager between bishop and dean, 91. 

Walker & Wood, Messieurs, of Brad- 
ford, 281. 

Wall, Mr., 135. 

Walter, Madame, 435. 

Ward, Baron, his extraordinary ca- 
reer, 305 ; anecdote of, 306. 

Warton, Dr., 95. 

Warton, Tom, 95. 

Warwickshire, Landor goes to, 442. 

Washington, Grattan's visit to, 502. 

Watts, portrait of Lady Holland by, 
339. 

Ways, the parting of the, 248. 

Webster, Mr., of Boston, Grattan on, 
502, 503 ; Mrs., 502. 

Wellington Street, No. 20, visits to, 
355. 



546 



INDEX. 



West India, book on, Anthony's, 4*76. 

Whately, Archbishop of DubUu, his 
Liberalism, 133, 141, 143; purges 
Alban Hall, 133; biography of, by 
Miss Jane Whately, 134-136 ; his 
methods of teaching, 134, 135; 
anecdotes of, 135, 138, 140, 143, 
144; dishked by the Oxford dons, 
136; I did not please him, 136; 
his despotic temper, 137; antago- 
nism with Shuttlevvorth, warden 
of New College, 138 ; his wit, 138; 
specimen of it, 139 ; bis dislike of 
Winchester and Wykehamists, 
139-141'; I rubbed him the wrong 
way, 140 ; his remarkable utter- 
ances on state of Ireland, 142, 143 ; 
his logic lectures, 139, 140, 146 ; 
his " Liberalism " good modern 
" Conservatism," 143 ; his treat- 
ment of me, 146, 14*7. 

Whately, Miss Jane, 134, 135, 139, 
140, 144. 

Whately, Mrs., 135. 

Wlieeler, Mr., 104. 

Whig, aristocratic, 495. 

Whigs, the, Landor on, 444. 

Whipcord and oats, 25. 

Whist and medical practice, 489. 

White Bear Inn, 5. 

White, Blanco, 144, 145. 

White Horse Cellar, 5, 22; scene at, 6. 

White, Linda, 418. 

Whitebait and Gianchetti, 294. 

Whitefriars, 33. 

Whittaker, Mr., Mary Mitford's pub- 
lisher, 496. 

Wife, my second, and George Eliot, 
484. 

Wilkes, Mr., 114, 115, 130. 

Williams, Dr. David, 16, 17, 77, 80, 
88, 89, 171. 

Willis, Dr., of Boston, 267. 

Wills, Mr., dinner with, 361. 

Wilson, Rev. Daniel, 62. 

Winchester, Cathedral, chapter of, 



1 1 ; restoration of, 11; my first 

journey to, 66 ; college electors, 
48 ; election, manner of, 48, 49, 
68 ; founder's kin, 49 ; election 
chamber, 68 ; festivities, 69 ; 
phraseology, 70 ; rations, 70, 71 ; 
Dr. Gabell of, 492. 

Wise, Mr., 444. 

Wiseman, Cardinal, in Casa Sloane, 
338. 

Witley, the Heights, 467. 

Witney, drives to, 150. 

Wood, Mr., of Bradford, 280; & 
Walker, Messieurs, 280. 

Woodburn, Rev. Jack, 98. 

Woolaston, Dr., 253. 

" Woonderf ul," favorite word with 
Landor, 440. 

Wordsworth, visit to, 284 ; his recita- 
tion of his own lines, 285 ; manner 
of reciting, 285 ; his eldest son's 
misfortune, 499. 

Work, hard, 248, 249. 

Work the great consoler, Lewes on, 
485. 

Wright, Camilla, 106, 107. 

Wright, Frances, 106-108, 115. 

Writing-master at Winchester, 102. 

Wye, the, from Chepston to Ross, 
59; banks of the river, 156. 

Wykehamists, Whately's dislike for, 
136, 139-141. 

XiMENES, Palazzo, in Florence, 389. 

York Street, in, 250, 297 ; return to, 
322 ; house in, given up, 322, 323. 

"Young Backwoodsman," Mary Mit- 
ford asks about, 495. 

" Young Pretender, The," Mary Mit- 
ford's story of, 498. 

Young, Dr., 253. 

Young, John, 43, 44. 

Zandt, Baron de, 12, 153. 
Zandt, Baroness, 325. 



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Edges and Gilt Tops, $12 00; Sheep, $15 00; Half Calf, $25 50. 
Sold only in Sets. Popular Edition, 6 vols., in a Box, 12mo, Cloth, 
$3 00. 

GIBBON'S ROME. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Ro- 
man Empire. By Edward Gibbon. With Notes by Dean Mil- 
man, M. GuizoT, and Dr. William Smith. New Edition, from 
New Electrotype Plates. 6 vols., 8vo, Cloth, with Paper Labels, 
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$25 50. Sold only in Sets. Popular Edition, 6 vols., in a Box, 
12mo, Cloth, $3 00 ; Sheep, $6 00. 

GOLDSMITH'S WORKS. The Works of Oliver Goldsmith. Edited 
by Peter Cunningham, F.S.A. From New Electrotype Plates, 
4 vols., 8vo, Cloth, Paper Labels, Uncut Edges and Gilt Tops, 
$8 00 ; Sheep, $10 00; Half Calf, $17 00. 



2 Valuable WorJcs for Public and Private Libraries. 

MOTLEY'S DUTCH REPUBLIC. The Rise of the Dutch Republic. 
A History. By John Lotilrop Motley, LL.D., D.C.L. With a 
Portrait of William of Orange. Cheap Edition, 3 vols., in a Box. 
8vo, Cloth, with Paper Labels, Uncut Edges and Gilt Tops, $6 00; 
Sheep, $7 50; Half Calf, $12 75. Sold only in Sets. Original 
Library Edition, 3 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $10 50. 

MOTLEY'S UNITED NETHERLANDS. History of the United 
Netherlands : From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve 
Years' Truce— 1584-1609. With a full View of the English-Dutch 
Struggle against Spain, and of the Origin and Destruction of the 
Spanish Armada. By John Lothrop Motley, LL.D,, D.C.L. 
Portraits. Chea;D Edition, 4 vols,, in a Box, 8vo, Cloth, with Paper 
Labels, Uncut Edges and Gilt Tops, $8 00; Sheep, $10 00; Half 
Calf, $17 00. Sold only in Sets. Original Library Edition, 4 vols., 
8vo, Cloth, $14 00. 

MOTLEY'S JOHN OF BARNEVELD, The Life and Death of John 
of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, With a View of the Primary 
Causes and Movements of the " Tliirty Years' War." By John 
Lothrop Motley, LL.D., D.C.L. Illustrated. Cheap Edition, 
2 vols., in a Box, 8vo, Cloth, with Paper Labels, Uncut Edges and 
Gilt Tops, $4 00 : Sheep, $5 00 ; Half Calf, $8 50. Sold only in 
Sets. Original Library Edition, 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $7 00. 

HILDRETH'S UNITED STATES. History of the United States. 
First Series : From the Discovery of the Continent to the Or- 
ganization of the Government under the Federal Constitution. Sec- 
ond Series : From the Adoption of the Federal Constitution to the 
End of the Sixteenth Congress. By Richard Hildreth. Popular 
Edition, 6 vols., in a Box, 8vo, Cloth, with Paper Labels, Uncut 
Edges and Gilt Tops, $12 00; Sheep, $15 00; Half Calf, $25 50. 
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LODGE'S ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. English Colo- 
nies in America. A Short History of the English Colonies in Amer- 
ica. By Henry Cabot Lodge. New and Revised Edition. 8vo, 
Half Leather, $3 00, 

TREVELYAN'S LIFE OF MACAULAY. The Life and Letters of 
Lord Macaulay. By his Nephew, G. Otto Trevelyan, M.P. 
With Portrait on Steel. 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt 
Tops, $5 00 ; Sheep, $6 00 ; Half Calf, $9 50. Popular Edition, 
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TREVELYAN'S LIFE OF FOX. The Early History of Charles 
James Fox. By George Otto Trevelyan. 8vo, Cloth, Uncut 
Edges and Gilt Tops, $2 50 ; Half Calf, $4 76. 



Valuable Worlcs for Public and Private Libraries. 3 

WKITINGS AND SPEECHES OF SAMUEL J. TILDEN. Edited 
by John Bigelow. 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, Gilt Tops and Uncut Edges, 
$6 00 per set. 

GENERAL DIX'S MEMOIRS. Memoirs of John Adams Dix. Com- 
piled by his Son, Morgan Dix, With Five Steel-plate Portraits. 
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HUNT'S MEMOIR OF MRS. LIVINGSTON. A Memoir of Mrs. 
Edward Livingston. With Letters hitherto Unpublished, By Lou- 
ise Livingston Hunt. 12mo, Cloth, f 1 25. 

GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE. George Eliot's Life, Related in her Let- 
ters and Journals. Arranged and Edited by her Husband, J. W. 
Cross. Portraits and Illustrations. In Three Volumes. 12mo, 
Cloth, $3 75. New Edition, with Fresh Matter. (Uniform with 
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PEARS'S FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. The Fall of Constan- 
tinople. Being the Story of the Fourth Crusade. By Edwin 
Pears, LL.B. 8yo, Cloth, $2 50. 

RANKE'S UNIVERSAL HISTORY. The Oldest Historical Group 
of Nations and the Greeks. By Leopold von Ranke. Edited by 
G. W. Prothero, Fellow and Tutor of King's College, Cambridge. 
Vol. I. 8vo, Cloth, $2 50. 

LIFE AND TIMES OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. A Sketch 
of the Life and Times of the Rev. Sydney Smith. Based on Family 
Documents and the Recollections of Personal Friends. By Stuart 
J. Reid. With Steel-plate Portrait and Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, 

$3 00. 

STORMONTH'S ENGLISH DICTIONARY. A Dictionary of the 
English Language, Pronouncing, Etymological, and Explanatory: 
embracing Scientific and other Terms, Numerous Familiar Terms, 
and a Copious Selection of Old English Words. By the Rev. James 
Stormonth. The Pronunciation Revised by the Rev. P. H. Phblp, 
M.A. Imperial 8vo, Cloth, f6 00; Half Roan, $7 00; Full Sheep, 
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PARTON'S CARICATURE. Caricature and Other Comic Art, in 
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DU CHAILLU'S LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN. Summer 
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Finland. By Paul B. Du Chaillu. Illustrated. 2 vols., 8vo, 
Cloth, $7 50; Half Calf, $12 00. 



4 Valuahle Worlcs for Public and Private Libraries. 

LOSSING'S CYCLOPEDIA OF UNITED STATES HISTORY. 
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Illustrated by 2 Steel Portraits and over 1000 Engravings. 2 vols., 
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LOSSING'S FIELD-BOOK OF THE REVOLUTION. Pictorial 
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of the History, Biography, Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the 
War for Independence. By Benson J. Lossing. 2 vols., Svo, 
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LOSSING'S FIELD-BOOK OF THE WAR OF 1812. Pictorial 
Field-Book of the War of 1812 ; or, Illus: rations by Pen and Pencil 
of the History, Biography, Scenery, Relics, and Traditions of the 
last War for American Independence. By Benson J. Lossing. 
With several hundred Engravings. 1088 pages, Svo, Cloth, $7 00; 
Sheep or Roan, $8 50; Half Calf, $10 00. 

MULLER'S POLITICAL HISTORY OF RECENT TIMES (1816- 
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LEK. Translated, with an Appendix covering the Period from 1876 
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STANLEY'S THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT. Through 
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Lakes of Equatorial Africa, and Down the Livingstone River to the 
Atlantic Ocean. 149 Illustrations and 10 Maps. By H. M. Stan- 
let. 2 vols., Svo, Cloth, $10 00; Sheep, $12 00; Half Morocco, 
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STANLEY'S CONGO. The Congo and the Founding of its Free 
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smaller ones. By H. M. Stanley. 2 vols,, 8vo, Cloth, $10 00; 
Sheep, $12 00; Half Morocco, $15 00. 

GREEN'S ENGLISH PEOPLE. History of the English People. 
By John Richahd Green, M.A. With Maps. 4 vols., Svo, Cloth, 
$10 00; Sheep, $12 00; Half Calf, $19 00. 

GREEN'S MAKING OF ENGLAND. The Making of England. 
By John Richard Green. With Maps. Svo, Cloth, $2 50 ; Sheep, 
$3 00 ; Half Calf, $3 75. 

GREEN'S CONQUEST OF ENGLAND. The Conquest of England. 
By John Richard Green. With Maps. Svo, Cloth, $2 50 ; Sheep, 
$3 00; Half Calf, $3 75. 



Valiiahle Works for Public and Private Libraries. 5 

ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS. Edited by John Morley. 
The following volumes are now ready. Others will follow : 

Johnson. By L. Stephen. — Gibbon. By J. C. Morison.— Scott. By R. H. Hut- 
ton.— Shelley. By J. A. Sy mends. —Goldsmith. By W. Black.— Hume. By Pro- 
fessor Huxley.— Defoe. By W. Minto.— Burns. By Principal Shairp.— Spenser. 
By R.W. Church.— Thackeray. By A. Trollope.— Burke. By J. Morley.— Milton. 
By M. Pattison.— Southey. By E. Dowden.— Chaucer. By A. W. Ward. — Bunyan. 
By J. A. Froude.— Cowper. By G. Smith.— Pope. By L. Stephen.— Byron. By 
J. Nichols.— Locke. By T. Fowler. — Wordsworth. By F. W. H. Myers.— Haw- 
thorne. By Henry James, Jr. —Dryden. By G. Saintsbury.— Landor. By S. Col- 
vin.— De Quincey. By D. Masson.— Lamb. By A. Ainger. — Bentley. By K. C. 
jebb.— Dickens. By A.W.Ward.— Gray. By E.W. Gosse.— Swift. By L. Stephen. 
—Sterne. By H. D. Traill- Macaulay. By J. C. Morison.— Fielding. By A. Dob- 
son.— Sheridan. By Mrs. Oliphant.— Addison. By W. J. Courthope.— Bacon. By 
R. W. Church.— Coleridge. By H. D. Traill.— Sir Philip Sidney. By J. A. Sy- 
monds. 12mo, Cloth, 75 cents per volume. 

REBER'S HISTORY OF ANCIENT ART. History of Ancient 
Art. By Dr. Franz von Reber. Revised by the Author. Trans- 
lated and Augmented by Joseph Thacher Clarke. With 310 Illus- 
trations and ;i Glossary of Technical Terms. 8vo, Cloth, $3 50. 

REBER'S MEDIAEVAL ART. History of Mediaeval Art. By Dr. 
Franz von Reber. Translated and Augmented by Joseph Thacher 
Clarke. With 422 Illustrations, and a Glossary of Technical Terms. 
8vo, Cloth, $5 00. 

NEWCOMB'S ASTRONOMY. Popular Astronomy. By Simon 
Newcomb, LL.D, With 112 Engravings, and 5 Maps of the Stars. 
8vo, Cloth, $2 50 ; School Edition, 12mo, Cloth, $1 30. 

VAN-LENNEP'S bible LANDS. Bible Lands : their Modern Cus- 
toms and Manners Illustrative of Scripture. By Henry J. Van- 
Lennep, D.D. 350 Engravings and 2 Colored Maps. Svo, Cloth, 
$5 00 ; Sheep, $6 00 ; Half Morocco, $8 00. 

CESNOLA'S CYPRUS. Cyprus: its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and 
Temples. A Narrative of Researches and Excavations during Ten 
Years' Residence in that Island. By L. P. di Cesnola. With 
Portrait, Maps, and 400 Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, Extra, Uncut 
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TENNYSON'S COMPLETE POEMS. The Complete Poetical Works 
of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. With an Introductory Sketch by Anne 
Thackeray Ritchie. With Portraits and Illustrations. 8vo, Extra 
Cloth, Bevelled, Gilt Edges, $2 50. 

SHORT'S NORTH AMERICANS OF ANTIQUITY. The North 
Americans of Antiquity. Their Origin, Migrations, and Type of 
Civilization Considered. By John T. Short. Illustrated. Svo, 

Cloth, $3 00. 



6 Valuable Worlcs for Public and Private Libraries. 

GROTE'S HISTORY OF GREECE. 12 vols., l2mo, Cloth, $18 00; 

Sheep, $22 80 ; Half Calf, $39 00. 

FLAMMARION'S ATMOSPHERE. Translated from the French 
of Camille Flammarion. With 10 Chromo - Lithographs and 86 
Wood-cuts. 8vo, Cloth, $6 00 ; Half Calf, $8 25. 

BAKER'S ISMAILIA : a Narrative of the Expedition to Central Af- 
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Khedive of Egypt. By Sir Samuel W. Baker. With Maps, Por- 
traits, and Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00 ; Half Calf, $7 25. 

LIVINGSTONE'S ZAMBESI. Narrative of an Expedition to the 
Zambesi and its Tributaries, and of the Discovery of the Lakes 
Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858 to 1864. By David and Charles Liv- 
ingstone. Illustrated. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00; Sheep, $5 50; Half 

Calf, $7 25. 

LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNALS. The Last Journals of Da- 
vid Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to his Death. Con- 
tinued by a Narrative of his Last Moments, obtained from his 
Faithful Servants Chuma and Susi. By Horace Waller. With 
Portrait, Maps, and Illustrations. 8vo, Cloth, $5 00; Sheep, $6 00. 

BLAIKIE'S LIFE OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE. Memoir of his 
Personal Life, from his Unpublished Journals and Correspondence. 
By W. G. Blaikie, D.D. With Portrait and Map. 8vo, Cloth, 
$2 25. 

" THE FRIENDLY EDITION " of Shakespeare's Works. Edited by 
W. J. Rolfe. In 20 vols. Illustrated. IGmo, Gilt Tops and Un- 
cut Edges, Sheets, $27 00 ; Cloth, $30 00 ; Half Calf, $60 per Set. 

GIESELER'S ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. A Text -Book of 
Church History. By Dr. John C. L. Gieseler. Translated from 
the Fourth Revised German Edition. Revised and Edited by Rev. 
Henry B. Smith, D.D. Vols. I., II., III., and IV., 8vo, Cloth, 
$2 25 each; Vol, V., 8vo, Cloth, $3 00. Complete Sets, 5 vols., 
Sheep, $14 50 ; Half Calf, $23 25. 

CURTIS'S LIFE OF BUCHANAN. Life of James Buchanan, Fif- 
teenth President of the United States. By George Ticknor Cur- 
tis. With Two Steel Plate Portraits. 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, Uncut 
Edges and Gilt Tops, $6 00. 

COLERIDGE'S WORKS. The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor 
Coleridge. With an Introductory Essay upon his Philosophical and 
Theological Opinions. Edited by Professor W. G. T. Shedd. With 
Steel Portrait, and an Index. 7 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $2 00 per vol- 
ume ; $12 00 per set; Half Calf, $24 25. 

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